No 7 Healesville will help grow winemakers career through new program
Ever wanted to make your own wine? One Yarra Valley institution is giving upcoming winemakers the chance to create their own drop— here’s how you can get involved.
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Unless you’re born into the family business, there isn’t an easy way aspiring winemakers can produce their own drop.
But Andrea Davison has been given a rare opportunity to create her own range, with help from the team behind one of the Yarra Valley’s biggest venues.
The family who launched Stones of the Yarra Valley and Meletos is opening a new urban winery No. 7 Healesville later this year.
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The property will have a new winemaking facility and equipment for up to 20 beginners to create their own wine from scratch.
Ms Davison, who works as a lab technician at Greenstone Vineyards, is one of five people already signed up.
“Last year I made a semillon with my husband and we were very enthusiastic about it,” she says.
“I’m the seed and he’s the sun. He’s the marketing genius and I love making things.”
But if Andrea and husband Phil wanted to commercially produce small-batch semillon it could be costly.
“Yarra Valley fruit can cost up to $4000 a tonne, then you pay for the winemaker process,” she says.
“So the end project could cost ‘tens of thousands’ of dollars.”
One of Andrea’s colleagues suggested she apply for the No. 7 Healesville project, which promises to buy back half of the finished product and sell the wine in its cellar door, at the restaurant and for events at all three sites.
Steve Frazer, No. 7 Healesville managing director, says the urban winery will give winemakers a place to hone their skills.
“It’ll help those young and emerging winemakers who have not had the opportunities to access the facilities,” he says.
“So we’re allowing them to come and make their first vintage in a space where they will have excellent mentoring, outstanding equipment … and to have a really positive experience on their first go.”
Winemaker Kaspar Hermann, who has worked at Yering Station, Punch Winery and Mount Mary, will help the team with the process.
Winemakers can choose their grapes and each use two-tonne of fruit to produce wine.
Mr Hermann will provide a press and guidance with fermentation, storage, bottling and launching the new wine label.
“It’s such an amazing opportunity. We can’t wait for people to taste it,” Andrea says.
No. 7 Healesville will open on Lilydale Rd, the same precinct as Four Pillars gin distillery and Payten and Jones wines.
The restaurant and cellar door will open from late December, with the first vintage released in 2019.
To be apart of the program, visit: www.no7healesville.com
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