Recent Ratings and Awards - September/October 2009

(Originally posted on Wednesday October 14, 2009)

The months of September and October have been incredibly busy again for all of The Collective. Mark has started summer pruning in the Gumpara vineyard, Wayne has gone to Brisbane this week for a function promoting Smallfry at Bar Barossa and James has been grafting vines in the Karra Yerta vineyard. Next week Mark (Gumpara) and Steve (Kurtz Family Vineyards) are off to Tasmania for a function with Field Blend, and Marie has just returned from Melbourne for a visit with Karra Yerta's Victorian distributor. Karra Yerta has also received some amazing reviews over the past month - you can read them here.

It seems that every week, one of the group is interstate which must be a good thing, and each winery is having much success with their respective sales. It is still a very hard market to be in but all of our products are standing in very good stead.

September was a huge month for most of us. Two local events kept us on our toes. The first was the Taste of Spring Eden Valley Riesling tasting held at the Eden Valley Institute where over seventy-five different Eden Valley Rieslings were on show to media, journalists and the wineries. What an incredible day. It was inspirational to not only see all of the rieslings laid out on the tables but also to taste the differences (and similarities) between the varying terroir of the region. A lunch catered by Gill Radford of Radford Wines complemented the wines perfectly. Smallfry and Karra Yerta provided three rieslings each at the tasting and they were all very well received.

Later on in the same week, it was the 2009 Barossa Wine Show. This is one of the state's most prestigious events and the following is a list of which Collective wines won medals:

Silver Medal (Class 16)
Karra Yerta Wines 2006 Shiraz Cabernet

Bronze Medal (Class 11)
Kurtz Family Vineyard 2006 Boundary Road Shiraz

Bronze Medal (Class 15)
Kurtz Family Vineyard 2006 Boundary Road GSM

Bronze Medal (Class 16)
Kurtz Family Vineyard 2007 Seven Sleepers Dry Red Blend

Bronze Medal (Class 6)
Smallfry Wines - 2009 Smallfry Eden Valley Rose'

POSTSCRIPT: Karra Yerta Wines also won a Bronze Medal for their 2009 Eden Valley Riesling at the 2009 Canberra International Riesling Challenge on October 18, 2009.

Regards,
Marie Linke

A Collective visit to Queensland

(Originally posted on Thursday July 30, 2009)

Three of the Collective wineries, Karra Yerta, Smallfry and Kurtz Family Vineyards spent the past weekend in Brisbane attending two tastings and a formal dinner organised by Purple Palate for the purpose of promoting their new business venture, Bar Barossa.

Over the three days, almost one thousand people were able to meet the winemakers from twenty-five different wineries and sample a good range of the wines produced in the Barossa and Eden Valleys. By all accounts it was a very successful trip and the Collective winemakers, James Linke, Wayne Ahrens and Steven Kurtz returned to the Barossa this week feeling inspired and positive about our future business prospects with Purple Palate, and in Queensland generally.

It is not often that such a large contingent of winemakers travel interstate for the one function and the organisation required to do so was enormous. Well done to the Purple Palate gang on doing such a fine job of making our winemakers feel at home and ensuring that each of the three events ran smoothly. Special thanks to Darren Davis for allowing us to use some of his photographs from the weekend on this page.

Regards,
Marie Linke