NEWS

The landlocked Barossa Valley is a deeply rooted agricultural region still strongly, and strangely, influenced by their German and English heritage. It’s been odd speaking German with the locals here and eating phenomenal bratwurst, but in many ways it’s refreshing to see an area remain so true to its past.…

I went North to the Barossa this weekend, and barely made it back alive. There’s something dangerous in the air up there that pours lots of good red wine down my gullet. I think it has a name, this evil force, they call it: Travis O’Callaghan. Travis is a great…

Meltdown is upon us. As I stated earlier, this is turning out to be one of the most extraordinary years in Aussie viticultural history, and the vineyards are finally kaputt, calling it a day, and falling apart. The R winemaking team has been walking through all of the vineyards, over…

It comes down to this: it’s the final three weeks of harvest before the premium reds finish their final stretch of developing full flavor profiles and are put to the press. It’s been the worst year of drought in Australia since 1982 (looking at 100f plus this weekend), and the…

The grapes are coming into Belvedere, the large commercial winery that R Wines calls home, by the truckload. Capable of handling 20,000 tons of fruit, Belvedere is a monster, but still small next to Wolf Blass’s 250,000 ton facility down the road. We will be crushing about 5,000 tons of…

The vintage here is getting stressful, not enough grapes to go around, and dozens of growers to coddle until the contracts are signed and the fruit finally arrives at the winery. We work til our fingers bleed, then relax. And there is no finer breeze and light than in South…

I’ve begun driving long distances, which has caused some confusion, thanks to prehistoric signage pointing to the long forgotten villages of Middle Earth, as well as a chance to see more of the expansive sun stained countryside. R Winery is drawing from vineyards scattered all over South Australia, like McLaren…

This has been one of the hottest and driest summers in history, which is saying something in Australia. I spent a good part of yesterday wandering round downtown under the severe sun looking for sunglasses, an ipod cover, a usb modem, and an fm transmitor. All of these will help…