Drought and fires can’t stop winery’s top drop

THE fruits of Symphony Hills Wines labour have paid off.

Symphony Hill Wines owner Ewen Macpherson.

DROUGHT, bushfires and the loss of a winemaker didn't stop Symphony Hills Wines owner Ewan Macpherson - and the fruits of his labour have paid off.

The Granite Belt winery has taken home a gold medal at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show for its 2019 Gewurztraminer, the highest scoring wine in its class.

It's a fitting reward for Mr Macpherson, who has faced his share of challenges this year.

Those challenges have included his winemaker moving on - compounded by the loss of grapes normally sourced from a nearby vineyard due to drought and bushfires.

Mr Macpherson said he found fruit in the New South Wales town of Orange, drove nine hours and slept in the winery so he could be up at 5am to supervise the pick and work out the logistics of getting the grapes back to the winery.

This gold medal follows other victories for the 2019 vintage, winning trophies for the 2019 Albarino and 2019 Fiano.

Aided by winemaking consultant Mark Ravenscroft and the winemaking team of Ash Smith, Daniel Davies and Mick Ford, Mr Macpherson said the awards gave the winery a morale boost after the devastating natural disasters.

"We were lucky enough to be able to purchase 2 MegL of water from a neighbour who could spare it," he said.

"We ran 2.5km of pipe up the road to pump it back to our dam. This will get us through spring."

Mr Macpherson is now looking to the 2020 vintage, which will be led by South African winemaker Abraham de Klerk.

Mr de Klerk, who started in May, finished off and bottled all of the award-winning white wines from the 2019 vintage.

Symphony Hill Wines is located at 2017 Eukey Rd, Ballandean.