145-year-old vineyard fortified to weather the storm
A mother-daughter duo are facing up to unprecedented challenges in a seventh-generation family vineyard, writes Chantelle Francis. Here’s how they’re keeping tradition alive.
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MOTHER-daughter duo Wendy and Natasha Killeen are the first women to run their family winery in its 145-year history.
And you could say, they’re crushing it.
The seventh-generation family vineyard, Stanton and Killeen, at Rutherglen in Victoria’s North East, grows 14 grape varieties — half of which are Portuguese — to produce an average 10,000 nine-litre cases of premium wine a year — including sparkling, white and red table wines and an extensive range of fortified wines.
The 142ha property includes farmland for sheep production, which the women have chosen to agist to a young family, and 28ha of vines — the oldest dating back to 1921 and most recent planted in 2015.
Stanton and Killeen prides itself on enjoying “the best of worlds” when it comes to grape varieties.
The main, “in the traditional sense”, being Shiraz, Durif and Muscat, and the “point of difference” being vintage port varieties including Souzao, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), Tinta Barocca, Touriga Nacional and Tinto Cão.
“We have traditional varieties and we have these beautiful Portuguese varieties which tend to be very savory,” Wendy said.
The family’s “great love” for vintage port dates back to the early 1990s when Wendy and her late husband Chris “drank fortified wine and travelled”.
“We wanted to learn about our industry and what we were growing,” Wendy said.
“My father-in-law was making vintage port in the early 1970s and we got to a stage where we loved it so much that Chris wanted to make the very best vintage port in all of Australia. So we planted five vintage port varieties in the early 1990s for port production.”
SAVOUR THE FLAVOUR
THE Killeens preferred the drier and more savoury style of the Portuguese port varieties to the traditional sweet Australian style of port.
“They do well in our heat,” Wendy said. “They do better than other varieties that were planted many years ago.”
Chris was known as the Prince of Port among his peers.
When Chris died from cancer in 2007, his children honoured him by making a table wine – a blend of some of the Portuguese varieties — called The Prince, “because Chris was known as the Prince of Port among his peers in the world of wine”.
At the time it was unusual, but they’ve since made six table wines using the Portuguese port varieties.
“When we planted them (the Portuguese varieties) people drunk a lot of port but now that port consumption has declined quite dramatically, we now use those grapes for other wine styles,” Wendy said.
Following in her parents’ footsteps, five years ago Natasha Killeen took on the task of researching Portuguese white varieties to expand the family’s selection.
“We needed something that would complement our Portuguese red varieties and that would grow well in the heat,” Wendy said.
In 2015, Natasha and Wendy planted Arinto and Alvarinho – with the second release of the wines both winning trophies last year.
BUD BURST
THE magic at Stanton and Killeen starts around September at bud burst, and the grapes are monitored until they are at their “optimum ripeness” for picking.
Picking generally starts in mid-February and can run until the end of April, depending on the weather. On average, 150 tonnes of fruit is picked every year.
“The fruit is then crushed, fermented and it’s either stored in oak barrels if it’s red or bottled if it’s white,” Wendy said.
“And then depending on how it needs to be aged, it is bottled and labelled and goes out to our customers.
“We have a vast cellar of ageing fortified wines because in the early days that was the key product we made.
“At any one time I’ve got half a million litres of ageing fortified wine in my cellar.”
Pruning at Stanton and Killeen begins in June and runs until August, before attention is turned to watering and spraying for diseases.
Despite the past three years being challenging and hot, Wendy says their fruit quality is the best she’s seen it in a long time.
Wendy and Natasha have had a strong focus on the nutrition and health of their vines, working towards being as organic and environmentally as they can be in the future, but the current coronavirus pandemic has affected some of their plans.
We’re big on cover crops but this year we might have to save those dollars and not do it, and hope for the best next year.
“This year we are going to look at composting. We planned to compost all vineyards with straw but everything is put on hold because nobody has any idea when (the coronavirus crisis) will end and we’ve got to preserve our cash. We’re big on cover crops but this year we might have to save those dollars and not do it, and hope for the best next year.”
This year, 11.4 tonnes of fruit was picked from the 1921 Shiraz vineyard. It is the only vineyard that is hand-picked, and took 20 contract pickers eight hours.
It is also the only time contract workers are used, with Wendy and Natasha employing 10 full-time staff and owning a harvester.
“Jack’s block (the vineyard planted by Jack Stanton in 1921) is very old, the vines are very gnarly and fragile, but it’s a great vineyard and this year we had a bumper crop,” Wendy said.
“We’ve worked out the reason why it flourishes in the deep dark days of 45C heat — it’s because in the very early days when it was planted it would have been flood irrigated, so the roots are very deep, whereas most vineyards now for water efficiency are drip irrigated and of course you don’t establish that deep-rooting system in the same way you would if you flood irrigated.”
POSITIVE THINKERS
WHILE Wendy and Natasha are proud to make history as the first women to run the family business, it’s not the only historic change at the vineyard this generation.
This year is the first time in its history Stanton and Killeen’s cellar door has been closed indefinitely, amid the coronavirus crisis. Wendy and Natasha are used to welcoming thousands of visitors to their cellar door each year, offering tours and tastings.
Resilience is tightly woven into the fabric of every agricultural business.
“Our winery itself is really beautiful and old. It’s not shiny and new. There’s dirt floors, 100-year-old paved brick floors and we do guided tours and tastings in a very intimate area in our barrel hall,” Wendy said.
“Now it’s now dark, there’s nobody around and there’s a big sign on the gate.
“It’s a really tough time for everyone here. Everyone is feeling I think a bit numb and confused.”
But she says her team is doing its best to remain positive, as “resilience is tightly woven into the fabric of every agricultural business”.
NEW MARKETS
WITH the closure of their cellar door, which makes up about 35 per cent of sales, Wendy and Natasha have been forced to find new avenues to promote and sell their wine, including ramping up their online presence and focusing on digital marketing.
As well as selling direct to consumers online, which is more important now than ever, Stanton and Killeen also have limited sales through a distributor on the eastern sea board.
Five years ago, around the same time Natasha was researching new grape varieties to plant, Wendy was doing her own research into expanding their market. She developed an export market into China and Taiwan, and what started off as a sale of about 10 cases is now responsible for 20-25 per cent of Stanton and Killeen’s wine sales.
“The wine world has changed quite dramatically and how you sell wine too,” Wendy said.
“I developed an export market into China and Taiwan five years ago and that has grown and grown. That is now a major stream for us.”
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