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FAMILY WINERIES: GROWING UP AMONG THE VINES
Growing up among the vines
Family wineries have helped shape the Australian wine industry from its inception and are continuing to make an impact today – Caoimhe Hanrahan-Lawrence investigates.
Far from the corner shop stereotype that the name might have once evoked, family businesses are often as successful, if not more so, than other businesses. In fact, Credit Suisse reports indicate that family-owned businesses have consistently outperformed non-familyowned businesses for over a decade.
Many of the household names in the Australian wine industry are family owned and run. Family wineries have been instrumental in growing regions, popularising varieties and styles, and promoting Australian wine on the international stage.
Upholding the legacy
For family wineries, success does not just mean economic growth. Instead, many of these businesses express their ideas of success in qualitative terms. Success is about continuing the family legacy, creating a beloved product, or simply having a job that you love.
For Richard Angove, fifth generation winemaker at Angove Family Wines, success means creating “a business that is diverse and able to weather the peaks and troughs of both economic and agricultural challenges.”
Taylors Vineyard
Although, as he admits: “gold medals and trophies for our wines are nice as well.” However, any history of success necessarily includes a few defeats along the way. Many family-run wineries share the same stories; illnesses in the family, harsh droughts, and vineyards decimated by pests and disease. These setbacks require sacrifices, but they are a key part of forming a resilient, steadfast winery. The experience of the previous generation then becomes an invaluable resource when it comes to future hurdles.
Andrew Calabria, the third generation at Calabria Family Wines, said: “Dad’s been a really good, steady hand and always passing on advice that the industry does go through ups and downs. That’s why we try to have that long term perspective.”
But how do family wineries ensure their long term success? The consensus is that it’s important to have a core range of styles. Obviously, there is room for experimentation and new styles, but having a well-established core is vital to the business’s longevity.
Chester Osborn, the fourth generation of d’Arenberg Wines, added: “I read stories about my father’s wine styles back in the 60s. They said that his wines were very French-like, they were structured, with long ageability and great balance, good tannins. That’s what I still do.”
Michelle Geber, the second generation of Château Tanunda, agrees, adding: “It’s really important for us that we’re not making wines that are a trend at the moment, or because we found an opportunistic parcel of fruit in a particular year, but we’re about crafting and marketing high end wines from the Barossa.”
Just how long term the thought process is can differ. In order to hand the business on to the next generation, many family wineries think in terms of the next five or ten years, which can provide a safeguard against economic and environmental fluctuations.
Finding community
While the family is obviously a central component of a family winery, it is also necessary to involve people outside of the family.
Natalie Burch, the second generation of Howard Park Wines, said: “Family businesses across all sectors can become stuck in their micro-climate of ideas if they close themselves off to outsiders being a part of their business.”
There are numerous benefits for nonfamily workers in family businesses, with the atmosphere one notable aspect. Many producers identified a desire for their staff to feel like they are part of the family, and part of the story of the winery.
-Natalie Burch ,Howard Park Wines
As Angove said: “It’s important to note that it is not only family members that have laid the foundations, but a series of team members throughout the 137 years our business has been in operation. We have always had such a great team working together towards common goals.”
Consistency is a major drawcard for outside staff to join family businesses, as fourth-generation Bruce Tyrrell explained.
“If you’re getting a new CEO every three years, your life changes every three years pretty dramatically. You may or may not like it, and you’re probably not going to have a say in it,” said Tyrrell.
Family winemakers have also found community amongst each other, particularly through Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW). It has proven a valuable resource for inspiration, education, promotion, and friendship for the member families. Tyrrell spoke of an early AFFW event where a journalist asked how the families worked together despite being industry competitors.
“They’re also my oldest and dearest friends,” Bruce replied.
“So if you say anything about Ross Brown (Brown Family Wine Group), the business side of it is gone. You’ve insulted one of my greatest mates.”
Playing the long game
A challenge unique to family legacy labels is the need to raise the next generation of winemakers. How does the current generation ensure that their grapes don’t fall too far from the vine?
The first step is to build a successful business, as this gives the new generations opportunities to learn and make their own mark. Geber’s interest in Château Tanunda came through an internship at her family’s winery, during which time she was involved in launching their wines into the US market. The experience gave her a greater understanding of the international wine scene and cemented her pride in Australian wines.
How closely a person grew up amidst the family winery can also impact their interest later in life – Angove and Calabria both identify the smell of vintage as a strong childhood memory.
Justin Taylor, Mitchell Taylor and Clinton Taylor
Tyrrell adds: “I grew up around the place ever since I could walk. Wineries are wonderful places for children because you’ve got 50, 60 aunts and uncles to keep an eye out for you. I find that happens now with my grandchildren.”
Osborn says this was an educational experience for him, noting: “I was always going to be a winemaker. I learnt the process at a very young age. Only as a cog, not really understanding winemaking, but it infiltrates a bit.”
However, a childhood spent in the vineyard is not the only way the future generation enters the industry. Osborn’s three daughters grew up in Adelaide, but are now all studying winemaking. His youngest had always shown an interest – the turning point for the eldest daughters was during the March 2020 lockdown, which they all spent at the winery. Each night they would have wine tastings together, and by the end of the six week lockdown, all three daughters had decided to pursue winemaking as a career.
Third generation of Taylors Wines, Mitchell Taylor came to winemaking as an adult as well. Though he grew up around the winery, he initially pursued a career in finance. It was while he was setting up the winery’s first computer system that he “really saw how interesting the business was from the inside and could see where there was an opportunity to really try to improve things.”
Risk and reward
The wine industry is fast paced and competitive, and it may seem like family wineries could easily be mired down by tradition. However, innovation is the thing that has kept these wineries alive for decades or even centuries – the stories of risk associated with unique thinking has created a family legacy of adaptivity.
“When people say, what makes you want to try new things or be innovative, like be the first winery to go 100 per cent on screwcap? It’s those sorts of stories that really are in the family DNA, about making sure that you’re adaptive and still have that entrepreneurial spirit to survive,” Taylor says.
John, Evelyne and Michelle Geber
Tyrrell also speaks of that spirit. For example, in 1989, he hid 1,000 cases of Vat 1 Semillon from his father. The wine was released a decade later and introduced drinkers to the ways Semillon changes when aged. A similar story would be hard to imagine in a commercial winery.
A diversity of skills is necessary to drive innovation. Winemaking, in particular, is an incredibly varied and multifaceted business, and so members of family wineries often don’t have a single area of expertise.
Calabria noted: “It’s kind of crazy that you get Dad who will be in the lab tasting wines or out on a forklift in the warehouse, or with his shirt off in the garden of roses at the cellar door.”
To build these skills, many family wineries require the next generation to go out and gain experience and qualifications elsewhere, outside the family business or in another industry altogether.
Taylor recalls a time when his eldest son was told by schoolfriends that he didn’t have to work hard because he was guaranteed a job in the family’s winery. Taylor’s response to his son was that he did need to work hard, because not only was winemaking a demanding profession, but he would be expected to find work elsewhere before entering the family business.
Angove and his siblings also were encouraged and given the freedom from their parents to choose their own paths, thus bringing all different skills to the family business today.
“There was no real pressure to copy anyone or anything. My sisters Victoria, Sophie and I were given plenty of space to develop ourselves and our own style,” Angove said.
Jeff and Richard Burch
Still, the suggestions of the next generation are sometimes met with resistance. Osborn speaks of his decision to stop using fertiliser and herbicide in the vineyards early in his winemaking career, after he had been experimenting with fruit from derelict vines and realised that the cultivation practices were sterilising the soil and affecting the quality of the wine. Though the change proved to be a profitable one, the initial response from Osborn’s father (d’Arry) was: “Well, you should sell the vineyard now while it’s still alive, before it all dies.”
As Leanne de Bortoli, third generation at De Bortoli wines, points out, it is vital that the next generation is allowed to make their own decisions.
“Knowing that sometimes the decisions that other people would make are not necessarily the decisions that you would make, that’s part of being prepared to step back and let the next generation make their mark. It’s not always not always easy,” she explains.
While each family has a different approach to their business and their wines, the pride in their family legacy is something they all share. For Calabria, the family story is a key part of the winery’s appeal and will be for generations to come.
He said: “I think it just resonates with someone sitting around the table of their family enjoying a bottle of wine, knowing that a similar family has made this product.”
Family spotlight: Angove Family Winemakers
Angove Family Winemakers is Australia’s leading certified organic grape grower and winemaker, with a deep commitment to sustainability at all levels. With major interests in vineyards across South Australia, the links to the land are as strong as ever and the desire to protect and improve this finite natural resource is driving much of the development of the Angove brand.
Established 135 years ago by Dr William Angove, the brand has a deep heritage in health and wellbeing. Dr Angove emigrated to Australia from Cornwall in 1886. He entered viticulture when as a medical doctor he recommended wine as a tonic to his patients, and he began cultivating vines and making wine.
Sophie, Richard and Victoria Angove
Made with the gentlest touch and with minimal inputs, the Angove family crafts their range of exceptional Certified Organic wines from premium grapes sourced from their organic and biodynamic vineyards through McLaren Vale and the Riverland. At no stage during the grape growing or winemaking processes are synthetic chemicals or nonorganic inputs used.
Angove has been certified organic for 15 years, with Angove Organic the leading Organic wine brand in Australia. All Angove Organic wines and promotional material proudly display the “bud” logo, which required rigorous testing and auditing. One major highlight was being named Organic Business of the Year in 2019 and exporter of the year in 2021. The prestigious awards were presented as part of the annual Australian Organic Industry Awards, which recognise the achievements of businesses who are committed to sustainable and organic practice across different sectors, including wine.
