By Callum Ludwig
The Upper Yarra Secondary College’s (UYSC) flourishing vineyard can now count an award amongst their achievements in grape-growing.
At the recent 2024 Endeavour Group Yarra Valley Wine Show, UYSC’s Junction Street & Co 2023 Pinot Noir took out Best Small Batch Red Wine.
VET teacher Marcus Cook, who has led the vineyard operations at the school, said they feel pretty lucky to have entered the award and won a gold medal.
“The gold medal means we’ve scored 95 out of 100 from the judges so we got that as our first award and then because we’re a smaller vineyard, we won the Best Small Batch Red Wine competition,” he said.
The school’s vineyard is supported by Oakridge Wines, owned by the Endeavour Group, and their Vineyard Manager Steve Faulkner. Their support has helped UYSC this year to launch their product, now stocked at BWS and Dan Murphy’s.
Mr Cook said when they won the award, the importance of encouraging youth in the Yarra Valley to get into the industry was stressed.
“The Yarra Valley Wine Show was like generally supportive of our endeavours and said the future of the industry starts in programs that we run, we had some advice early on that the more hands you get in the vineyard, the better quality wine that can be produced,” he said.
“Winning our awards is evidence of that, we have all these students and staff helping out in the vineyard to create the best quality product and now it’s something to hang our hat on and for the whole school community to be proud of.”
The Junction Street & Co 2023 Pinot Noir has been available for purchase at the Chirnside Park and Yarra Junction BWS as well as Dan Murphy’s stores in:
Chirnside Park, Boronia, Ringwood, South Morang, Bulleen, Eltham, Doncaster East, Fishermans Bend, Brighton, Ascot Vale, Hawthorn East, Alphington, Malvern East, Prahran, Richmond, South Melbourne, Kew, Malvern, Camberwell, Brunswick East, Prahran Cellar, Collingwood, Spotswood and Balwyn.
Mr Cook said right now, they are getting into the bud burst stage at the moment, the first sign of what their next vintage’s crop will look like and when they can cut into buds to see how much fruit they are carrying.
“We’ve just got to start some of the desuckering and we’re trialling some digital technologies in the vineyard with digital readings of minerals in the soil and also running a digital weather station to help us further analyse the progress and when we need to spray, just adding that extra level of understanding of our vineyard by using new technology,” he said.
“We just want to say a huge thanks to the Endeavour Group and Oakridge Wines for all their support over the last few years to get us up here at Upper Yarra Secondary College to have the Junction Street vineyard as a product that the community can be proud of and can purchase at the local shops.”
