By JESSE GRAHAM
IT WAS a family side-project that propelled Serrat winery’s Tom and Nadege Carson to Australia-wide acclaim, winning one of the top awards at last week’s Wine Companion Awards.
Serrat’s 2014 Shiraz Viognier was given the Wine of the Year award at the ceremony on Tuesday 28 July at the Melbourne Museum, scoring a near-perfect 99 from acclaimed wine critic James Halliday.
Mr Carson, who has made wine in the Yarra Valley since 1992, said he was “astounded” to receive the award for the wine, which, he said, was a good fit for the valley.
Shiraz Viognier, he explained, is made using 95 per cent red wine grapes, with a small amount of white wine fermented in it.
“It’s a wine that I’ve always loved, always thought was well-suited to the valley,” Mr Carson said.
“We’ve been very honoured – I never imagined our place could produce something like that.”
Serrat is a family side-project for Tom and Nadege, who is a fifth generation French winemaker.
The pair first planted vines on the property near Yarra Glen in 2001, and hand-make the wines on-site, with the help of Kate Thurgood.
The winery itself is on seven acres, but has a high density of vines – four times as many as in regular vineyards, which is typical in France.
“It’s called ‘close planted’ in Australia – in France, it’s just normal,” Mr Carson said.
“The vines are much smaller, the crop load per vine is smaller, it’s more labour intensive … but we think it produces the best out of the site.
“Each vine produces less than a bottle of wine – it’s a concentration of the fruit, and less fruit on each plant means you get more flavour, more concentration in the wine.”
Serrat’s win for the valley was complemented by another win, this one for the Best New Winery, which was awarded to Gladysdale’s Bicknell FC, giving the Yarra Valley two of the six top awards.
Describing the vineyard as a “labour of love”, Mr Bicknell said he felt “smug” about winning the award, and attributed the winery’s success to patience – and good wine.
“I guess, perhaps the reason it’s come to the attention of the big man is that we haven’t hurried to put the wines out on the market,” Mr Bicknell said.
“We haven’t rushed at it – we’ve been making wine under the Bicknell FC label for about four years, but it wasn’t until last year that we put any wine into the market.”
Mr Bicknell said the adage of ‘find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life’ rang true when it came to making wines, most of the time at least.
“Well, it’s a product that people love – they truly, deeply love it – which is why you get people stupid enough to spend their entire weekends doing what they do for the rest of the week,” he said.
The Best Pinot Noir varietal award at the awards night was given to the 2013 Mount Mary Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, which achieved 98 points, while the Shiraz award went to Serrat’s 2014 Shiraz Viognier.
For the awards and the associated Halliday Wine Companion 2016, 8863 bottles of wine were tasted – some 398,835 millilitres or 6.5 bathtubs full of wine.
For more information on the awards, and a full list of winners, visit www.winecompanion.com.au/awards.
