WINE • Hunter Valley
Geoff Broadfield
IRON GATE ESTATE, Tuscany in the Hunter WORDS CATHARINE RETTER
G
eoff Broadfield has one of the best workplaces in the Hunter Valley, not least because it is one of the most beautiful boutique wineries in the Pokolbin area. Roger Lilliott, who founded the winery in1996 visited the great wineries of Europe for inspiration and travelled all the wine states of Australia for over a year looking for the perfect place to establish a winery and build a showpiece cellar door. The perfectionist in everything he did — from selecting Spanish roof and floor tiles for the cellar door, to planting the best Semillon, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Verdelho and Chardonnay vines — Roger also brought in the finest stainless-steel wine vats and equipment from Italy to precision-craft his wines. The cellardoor gates, after which the winery is named, were handcrafted by world-renowned blacksmith, Paul Simpson, in Queensland. With` the winery well established and in good hands, Roger retired in 2017, selling the estate to two Sydney-based families
who brought in Geoff as their professional winemaker. Iron Gate Estate is one of the few wineries in the Hunter to manage its winemaking on-site from vine, to pressing, to barrels, to bottle. Since taking over, Geoff — an experienced winemaker of 37 vintages in a number of well-known wine companies, as well as being a teacher of wine making at Kurri Kurri TAFE — has worked hard at putting his own stamp on Iron Gate Estate’s popular wine styles. The last three vintages have shown the effects of increasingly warmer summers and the company has changed over some grape varieties to ones better suited to this change in climate, for example grafting over vines to Tempranillo, a Spanish red variety. ‘We’re finding that we’re harvesting earlier because our summer temperatures are getting hotter earlier and for longer,’ says Geoff. But that’s not all. ‘Right across Australia, wine growers are putting a “sunblock” on their grapes.’
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