Interview – Jonathan Lord Winemaking Tasmania

Getting to the core of the APPLE ISLE’S MOMENT IN THE SUN

Tasmania is proudly basking in the global spotlight shining brightly on its wine, cider and craft spirit output. It’s the unique quality and diversity of boutique beverages crafted by small passionate producers that is currently garnering favourable attention for the island state. Drinks Trade found out more about these exciting times for Tasmania with Jonathan Lord, CEO, Winemaking Tasmania, who not only has the enviable position of being at the coalface of Tasmania’s craft wine and cider production, but whose work contributes to the movement itself.

DT:Tell us about Winemaking Tasmania and how it works?

JL: Winemaking Tasmania is a unique, highly specialised and award-winning producer of many of Tasmania’s finest wines and ciders in partnership with our client base of vineyard and orchard brand owners. We believe passionately in the provenance and unique qualities of Tasmania, its people and its produce. Everything we do is to benefit our clients and their long-term business prosperity. We invest in the best people, the best technologies and the best locally and internationally available inputs.

The principle focus of the relationship with our clients is partnership. We always seek to understand and support their business goals – be it wine style and quality differentiation, product and packaging development, distribution strategies, single vineyard provenance or multi-vineyard sourcing. Our client base consists of vineyard and orchard brand owners from across the state that bring their fruit to us to be crafted into a diverse and extensive array of wines and ciders under their own brands.

Our integrated winery and production footprint means that for Tasmania, we are uniquely positioned to produce any grape variety or wine style in volumes from as little as a 30-dozen single vineyard barrel selection to a 10,000+ dozen multivineyard blend or anywhere in between and beyond.

DT: Brand Tasmania is certainly capturing the attention of the world for its environmental qualities and its burgeoning arts scene. How is this current zeitgeist impacting your business?

JL: We’re certainly experiencing a diverse range of impacts as a direct result of this unique period in time we inhabit with Tasmania being the “apple” in the world’s eye. These experiences range from a growing stream of new clients, growth in client production volumes, new vineyard developments and all the growing pains associated with these demands.

However, without doubt the most exciting impact is the real and present opportunity to export our diverse array of premium wine and cider brands to the wider world. We were fortunate to attend Vinexpo Hong Kong in May where Australia featured as the Country of Honour with brilliant support from Wine Australia. As the only purely Tasmanian producer exhibiting, over the three days of the event we had a steady stream of visitors, at times up to six people deep, who had heard of Tasmania and Tasmanian wine but never had the opportunity to taste or experience it. From Russia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Italy, Thailand, Hong Kong and mainland China, it was both a thrill and a special honour to not only share our provenance with these people, but to provide them with an amazing first up tasting experience that reinforced their existing perception of Tasmanian wine as a truly unique and premium contributor to the world of wine.

DT:Tasmania prides itself on provenance and small production. In your opinion does Winemaking Tasmania significantly contribute to the craft wine and cider movement because of its focus on boutique producers?

JL:Yes. Our entire setup is based around premium small batch processing to keep small batches separate and create as many blending options for wine and cider production as possible. We are open to any style and actively encourage style discussions with our clients.

Over the last three years, our uniquely flexible approach has seen us process parcels as small as

250 kilograms to craft wines on behalf of clients. This might be a distraction to some but without this approach we would not have been in the position to craft Tasmania’s only varietal Viognier, Siegerrebe or Friulano wines. The latter, a rare north-eastern Italian variety was fermented in clay amphora on skins for 180 days and went on to win a trophy at the 2017 Alternative Varieties Wine Show.

DT:Small producers tend to have the freedom to experiment. What trends are you seeing come through the business? Are there any interesting and avant-garde styles being presented?

JL: We’re seeing a complete range of wine and cider making styles requested by our clients and we’re certainly enjoying crafting and providing styles to meet our client’s requirements. IN WHITE WINES: • No sulphur dioxide during fruit processing and maturation • Pre-ferment skin contact to produce wines with texture and interesting aromatics • Partial and full skins fermentation • A range of yeast choices from indigenous to novel, non-fermentative yeasts • Larger format oak maturation and clay amphora • Extended lees contact on all varieties (not just Chardonnay). IN RED WINES: • Extended cold soak periods • Extensive yeast selections from indigenous to novel and multi strain inoculations • Obviously, a range of whole bunch inclusion from nil to 100 per cent • Quite extended post ferment maceration up to 90 days • Larger format French oak maturation, particularly puncheons and up to 2000L foudres. IN CIDER: • A diversity of modern dessert and heritage apple and pear varieties and blends thereof • Use of malolactic fermentation to create mouthfeel and texture • Inclusion of locally pressed cherries to add colour and unique flavour profiles. Finally, there are some very exciting cross-category experiments in progress where we are looking to create unique fusions of cider and varietal wines to really see how far we might be able to push traditional category boundaries.

DT: Tell us a bit about a great wine or cider brand success story that is a result of working with Winemaking Tasmania?

JL: We are fortunate to work with more than 60 different vineyard and orchard brand owners from across Tasmania. Whilst I am reluctant to call out a single brand success story that is a result of working with us, without doubt our most successful brand partnership is with Bream Creek (established 1973) and its proprietor, the renowned vigneron Fred Peacock. What Fred doesn’t know about viticulture in Tasmania isn’t worth knowing, and he is both intricately involved and exacting in his standards in both viticulture and winemaking. The best way to describe our relationship with Bream Creek is symbiotic. We’re always learning from and leaning on Fred’s viticultural knowledge and experience. Yet on the winemaking front, it is Fred’s unique relationship with our chief winemaker, Glenn James, and his team, where things really start to sizzle. Over the four vintages they have worked together, the quality and reputation of Bream Creek’s already well-renowned wines has gone from strength to strength. Whether it’s crafting individually barrel selected, genuine reserve releases of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (the current release Reserve Pinot Noir was rated 97/100 by James Halliday) or supporting their significant export efforts – this is a truly special brand success story that we are proud to be a part of.

DT: Many mainland wineries are buying vineyards in Tasmania to future proof their business from climate change. What are your thoughts on how Tasmania benefits from increasing warmer climes?

JL: Tasmania is still a marginal cold climate viticultural region. It’s not uncommon to hear stories from local industry veterans of seasons only 20 to 30 years ago where they couldn’t get Shiraz to complete veraison (the transition from grape berry growth to ripening). If there is one beneficiary to climate change it is Tasmania’s wine industry. The continued march of climate change is presenting exciting opportunities for previously marginal or unthinkable grape varieties like Shiraz, Tempranillo and even Cabernet Sauvignon to find ideal homes in Tasmania’s unique, cold, arid climate.

On the investment side of things, it is the leadership and vision of family-owned businesses like Yalumba and Brown Brothers to future proof their businesses that has driven much of the growth in awareness, quality, distribution and production volume in Tasmania’s wine industry. Without them we would not have the scale of investment or global awareness of our wines that we presently enjoy.

DT: By all accounts it all seems very rosy on the Apple Isle. In your opinion does the industry in Tasmania face any challenges?

JL: There is certainly a strong current of buoyant optimism within Tasmania’s premium branded wine, cider, craft beer and spirits sectors. This is underpinned by the phenomenal growth in awareness of and goodwill towards Tasmania internationally and continued strong annualised growth in inbound tourism. As such, awareness, trial and advocacy are not a problem.

However, across each of the above sectors in Tasmania, economies of scale, product consistency and brand differentiation are real challenges. There are an awful lot of micro-businesses which, whilst well intentioned, are under-capitalised, underresourced and whose brand propositions are not clearly defined beyond the fact they’re ‘Tasmanian’. This is not a problem when such a significant percentage of production in each of these sectors is being purchased and consumed by tourists during their stay in the state. However, it is a problem when seeking to scale production, achieve broader distribution across mainland Australia or internationally, and to develop truly iconic premium brands that resonate with consumers globally not just because of where they are from but why they exist in the first place.

Our response to these challenges has been to increase investment in the critical human and physical assets to address these apparent structural weaknesses. The appointment of Glenn James as our chief winemaker was a critical first step and in the last 12 months we have created a specialised production team to underpin our sales and operational planning processes and ensure our achievement of HACCP & ISO 9001 quality accreditations.

DT: Can you run us through an average day at Winemaking Tasmania? What is your favourite part of the job?

JL: Wow, that’s a tough question. We are a relatively small business, committed to being Tasmania’s best producer of premium alcoholic beverages, in a state where our industry lacks the scale of our mainland colleagues, and a lot of what we do is driven by passion and belief in the journey that we’re on. As such, my role is quite diverse. On any given day I can be involved in client communications, finance, product and packaging development, tastings, HR or even find myself on the end of the production line, packing boxes.

In terms of the favourite part of my job, well that question is just as difficult. I truly, passionately love my job and I am one of those fortunate individuals who is lucky enough to be gainfully employed doing what I would do for free if I did not have a mortgage or other financial commitments. However, to answer the question directly, my favourite part of the job is seeing the continued growth and success of our individual team members as we strive to achieve our vision of being Tasmania’s best producer of premium alcoholic beverages. Truly blessed indeed.