Five Oaks’ Wally Zuk was no ‘gentleman winemaker’

‘Mad scientist’ Wally Zuk got the winemaking bug later in life but enthusiasm and a sense of humour had him avoid the traps.

Five Oaks Vineyard.

The wine industry attracts all types. There are the professionals who find wine at a young age and go through the usual channels. Winemaking school before a form of apprenticeship as they work their way up the ladder. There are others, and wine finds them often later in life.

Wally Zuk was one of these late bloomers – the classic gentleman winemaker, but one who also trained and certainly got his hands dirty. He spent many hours in the winery while wife Judy did her fair share on the tractor at their Five Oaks Vineyard in the Yarra Valley.

I met Wally more than 20 years ago. He was the father of an old friend, and the first winemaker I knew beyond a handshake and a couple of bottles. He helped me get my hands on some Yarra pinot noir a group of us hand pressed late in the night, powered by Johnnie Walker. And only a couple of hours later we were standing behind the bar at Wally and Judy’s winery, Five Oaks, spruiking his latest vintages. We were not alone, with friends and family of the Zuks drawn together over the decades to help out at key events.

Wally had come to wine the long way around. He was a Canadian, born to working class Russian immigrant parents. Wine was most certainly not enjoyed around the family dinner table in Val-d’Or, a small city in Quebec. Its goldmining history made it a bit of frontier town and precious few locals managed to make it through school and go on to university. Wally did not just make it; he did an engineering degree and topped it off with a PhD in nuclear physics. He was also a keen downhill skier and had tried out for the Canadian Olympic team in sailing.

Along the way he met Judy, who was brought up in country NSW. Wally had planned to follow her back to Australia but instead ended up buying a sports car, not his last. He had a cheeky streak but it didn’t cost him in the end. Judy returned to Canada and they later married.

After his studies, an opportunity arose to move to Canberra close to Judy’s family, which he took. And while he was there the wine bug bit for the first time, with a bottle of one of the first vintages of Henschke’s Hill of Grace. A lightbulb came on and Wally realised there was a fascinating world of wine he was keen to explore.

But the flirtation with Canberra was short and Wally was drawn back to Ontario, now with two sons in tow. His fascination with wine nevertheless continued. He helped to set up The Gourmet Group, a handful of academics and professionals who together explored the world of food and wine at regular gatherings. Wally also took his education a step further, doing wine courses and then becoming a certified wine taster. In his spare time, on top of his career and wine studies, he had built a holiday house back in Canada, which he proudly labelled “the erection” to anyone who would listen. He was not a man to sit still and he didn’t mind a joke.

Wally’s wine studies got him and Judy thinking that retiring on a vineyard would not be a bad option. Wally had never been the retiring type really and it was more of a career change, as any vigneron knows. In the nineties his opportunity finally came to enter the wine industry with a move back to Australia, thanks to a role at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation at Lucas Heights in Sydney, helping with the design of a new nuclear reactor.

Five Oaks Vineyard.

After arriving, Wally embarked on a painstaking search for a vineyard and winery the couple could call their own. He also enrolled in a wine science degree at Charles Sturt University, his fourth degree. Finally something came up that took their fancy: the original Oakridge site in the Yarra Valley.

The owners were keen for Wally and Judy to take the full package – vineyard, house, winery, brand and stock. But Wally was never going to take over someone else’s legacy – he wanted to make his own mark – so the Oakridge name was not part of the deal. The couple ran a competition for friends and family to find a name for their new estate, with the prize being a case of wine. Two came up with the name Five Oaks, and shared the spoils.

As anyone who has visited or spent time at Five Oaks would know, it is one of the most beautiful sites in the Yarra, thanks to the five imposing oak trees on the property that can be seen for miles around. But when Wally and Judy finally secured the site there was still plenty of work to be done. So for 18 months they did the weekend commute, from Sydney to Melbourne, before finally opening up for business in 1997.

Five Oaks was a true boutique winery in every sense. It was a passion project for Wally and Judy, and they loved meeting their customers and telling their stories, only getting outside assistance when there was no option. Wally in particular did not mind a chat and could often be found guiding anyone who was interested through the winery while Judy would hold the fort out front. He was, though, still the mad scientist. On one occasion he crafted a pear wine from local fruit crushed in a blender, fermented and then stored under the relatively rare inert Xenon gas he had managed to source from friends who still worked in the chemical industry, and it was not bad.

A wonderfully refreshing part of the Wally Zuk story was that he never took himself or his wines too seriously, avoiding the gentleman winemaker trap. For big festivals, he would spend the morning behind the barbecue turning out hundreds of plates of pancakes, Canadian style, topped with bacon and maple syrup. His wines were also remarkably elegant expressions of the Yarra Valley cabernet sauvignon and merlot, very different from the man himself.

Perhaps Wally’s demeanour was best illustrated by the name of his reserve wines, the first vintage of which was in 2000, the Five Oaks SGS or Seriously Good S***. In 2016 it was topped by the Five Oaks FSGS – Wally was one of a kind.

In recent years Wally was starting to slow down and the decision was made to wind down the business. He started by selling fruit to Dave Bicknell at Oakridge for the 2017 and 2018 vintages. No doubt Wally was chuffed when fruit from his vineyard, bottled under the Oakridge Original Vineyard label, went on to win two trophies at the 2020 Yarra Valley Wine Show for Best Cabernet Sauvignon and Best Single Vineyard Red Wine.

Last year the property was finally sold, and fittingly the Oakridge name and its original home were reunited. Wally used the proceeds for a final folly, a vintage Morgan sports car.

It’s a vineyard that chief winemaker David Bicknell clearly has a strong affinity for. “The cabernet sauvignon has always been king at this site. While it has historically had its ups and downs, particularly as it is a cooler site in the valley, given the vine age and tendency to crop lightly, we think it a wine with real savoir faire. We view this vineyard as a heritage site in the Yarra Valley.”

Unfortunately, very soon after the deal was done Wally’s health took a turn for the worse and he passed away with Judy by his side on September 17, 2021. And while their winery was never one of the big drawcards in the Yarra, he will be sorely missed by any who had the pleasure of his company or the wines he crafted.