Access all areas for smaller wine producers

There is an ever growing taste for wine appreciation and understanding the art and craft of the smaller producers.

Tuck’s Ridge, which is included in the Wine Compass itinerary.

As someone who differentiates wine by two types — red and white — I was somewhat nervous about hopping on a winery tour billed for connoisseurs.

Don’t get me wrong; I do love wine but I’ve never been the sort of person who would sniff it, swirl it around in my mouth and then — perhaps — spit it out. My drinking style is somewhat more, er, undisciplined.

There is a growing market for educated drinkers in Australia, however, and a bunch of winery tour operators are cashing in.

And there I was recently with about a dozen others who seemed to know heaps more about wine than I did, touring wineries in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, learning about why the pinot noir grape of 2009 turned into better wine than it did in other years. Well, I can report it had me from the first sip.

We started at the scenic Tuck’s Ridge winery, where we tasted other regional varieties including chardonnay, as well as pinot gris, rose and tempranillo, and learned about the influence of the weather conditions on the wine’s taste and quality.

All that might be obvious to a wine nut but to someone more familiar with a less temperamental product such as beer, it was all rather enlightening. It was good to know, too, that so many makers have shifted away from the high amount of preservatives used in winemaking a decade ago.

Hopping back on the bus, it was off to the Ocean Eight winery, where we tasted a fermenting pinot noir, straight out of the barrel in the cellar door.

Lunch was at the casual eatery at family winery Quealy Wines, where we ate locally sourced lamb sausages and apple cider cornettos. A far cry from a big tour bus full of revellers.

The founder of Wine Compass, Adam Nicholls, started the business three years ago, believing that most wine tours were too touristy.

A wine enthusiast himself, Nicholls wanted to further educate other enthusiasts and help ­beginners who wanted to learn, while providing a more bespoke experience.

“We wanted to have a tailored activity that really suits them, so actually speaking to them about what they want to do,” says Nicholls. “And then also having that better level of access to be able to get behind the scenes a bit more and — if that’s what they are up for — to get a bit more in-depth.

“But even the biggest connoisseurs like to have a laugh so we like to keep it fun and relaxed and have a really nice day out as well.

“We are not about the party bus, getting smashed and drinking on the bus. “

In three years the group has grown to have eight hosts and usually takes 10 tours a week. It has also expanded to Victoria’s biggest winery region, the Yarra Valley.

Engineer Chris Bloxsom ­describes himself as a wine enthu­siast but not quite a connoisseur, so the Wine Compass tour gave him a lighthearted learning ­experience.

“You don’t want to have some dry academic tour where you get a whole heap of the wine science thrust at you,” Bloxsom says. “It was presented in a fun and enjoyable way and we did learn some stuff, particularly about the ­resurgence of chardonnay and some other varieties that are coming into the country that haven’t traditionally been in Australia.”

Communications professional Tara Ballard has gone on three of the Wine Compass tours, saying she likes the lighthearted but personal interactions with the wine makers the tour affords.

“The tour was tailored for what we wanted,” she says. “When you go to the boutique wineries they really take the time. It’s fun and they tell you a bit of a story.”

Nicholls says the growing sophistication in the food and wine scene favoured his tour business. “People want gourmet, they want local produce, they want to know about producers. I feel that is a real swell that has been happening in hospitality as a whole.”

Daily Life wine tours Two Fat Blokes

In South Australia’s Barossa Valley, winery tours take thousands of tourists a year through the major commercial vineyards: Penfolds, Jacobs Creek and Wolf Blass. But there are 127 other wineries in the Barossa, and it is these that are the focus of John and Libby Baldwin’s private tours in the region, Barossa Daimler Tours.

The couple started the business in 1984, after they started showing their friends around and realised there was a bigger ­demand. John Baldwin says groups may ask to see the bigger wineries — but he prefers to show them the hidden gems.

“We like to go to the small independents, the family-owned wineries,” he says. “At these places it’s quite often you are going to talk to the cellar hand or the wine maker or the owner or their children and you get a more intimate feel.”

The tours, conducted in a luxury Daimler, have a flexible itinerary; the only firm bookings are lunch at Vintners Bar and Grill and afternoon tea at Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop.

“We are very informal,” says Baldwin. “I follow where their eyes are smiling and go from there.

“We are wine educators but in an informal environment — we are not in a classroom. So we don’t want people to be overawed by it all. So quite often we can do one or two wine producers in the morning, maybe a cheese tasting, and after lunch we can go sightseeing or walk off lunch, and if they feel like it we can go back to wine. It’s very open.”

The president of the NSW Wine Industry Association, Tom Ward, says the cellar door market in the Hunter Valley is booming.

“A lot of day trips can happen to the Hunter or the Southern Highlands (from Sydney), whereas Mudgee and Orange you get ­people who come for a weekend ­experience.”

Family-owned wine group Tyrrell’s hosts 5000 people at its Hunter Valley winery every year, with a focus on the history of the 158-year-old business.

Winery sales manager Michael Paterson says tours — typically taken by groups of two to four people only — focus on the production and cultural side of the winery, from vineyard to glass. The tour starts at founder Edward Tyrrell’s hut, built in 1858.

“And from there we run through the history of the Tyrrell family and explain the cultural ­aspects of the area, then we take them for a walk to our new winery … and then to our old winery, which was built in 1864,” Paterson says. He added that the process of growing grapes was explained to visitors.

There is also a tour for lovers of food as well as wine. Two Fat Blokes was founded nine years ago, when two rather portly men, Jan Molenaar and Peter Firth, went on a long lunch and ­decided they knew wine and food better than just about anyone.

The tour takes small groups through the region, aiming to ­impart food and wine knowledge in a fun way.

Some tours revolve more around food, while others are ­focused on the winery, depending on individual requests.

“There are about 170 cellar doors here in the Hunter region so we’ve got access to a very large number of those; we don’t have a set route,” says tour operations manager Phil Thompson.

“We take you into the cellar doors, introduce the staff to you, and that way you know who is ­actually doing your presentation and they are with you for the bulk of the day. So it is actually a guided tour, it’s not just a shuttle service.”

Thompson says the tour’s food and wine matching session is the tour’s biggest drawcard.

“We sit down and go through a range of nine different cheeses and we pair those up with nine ­different wines and most people say that’s the highlight of the tour,” Thompson says.

Tuck’s Ridge Winery: www.tucksridge.com.au

Ocean Eight winery: www.oceaneight.com.au

Quealy winery: www.quealy.com.au

Wine Compass tour: www.winecompass.com.au

Barossa Daimler Tours: www.barossadaimlertours.com.au

Tyrrell’s Wines: www.tyrrells.com.au

Two Fat Blokes: www.twofatblokes.com.au