Sam Costanzo discusses his new plantings at Golden Grove Estate. Images courtesy Tim Coelli
The Granite Belt wine region has found its strength in cooperation and collaboration over the past two decades, with the area now welcoming an increasing number of new visitors, and new wineries and vineyards being established in the area each year.
Two local winery owners have embodied this spirit of cooperation and collaboration, and committed large portions of their time to sharing resources with the wine community. Sue Smith and Michelle Coelli, have spent the last 14 years quietly volunteering their time to help promote better vineyard practices across the Granite Belt. Smith and her husband Warren founded Pyramids Road Winery 25 years ago, while Coelli and her husband Tim established Twisted Gum Wines 18 years ago.
With a combined 43 years of vineyard management experience in the Granite Belt, Smith and Coelli organised a series of six two-hour “Vineyard Walks” each season. Held on different vineyards across the Granite Belt, each walk covers a prespecified list of topics, ensuring that no two walks are the same. For example, one walk might include an inspection of a newly-planted variety, such as Petit Manseng, along with a discussion of midrow cover crop options, often finishing off with a lively discussion, such as a debate about leaf plucking preferences.
The walks have been popular occurrences, often drawing between 20-30 local growers each time. As the notion goes, ‘put a bunch of farmers in a room and they will say virtually nothing, but put them in a paddock and they will happily say plenty’—an idea which Smith and Coelli have witnessed in practice during the walks’ discussions.
Smith and Coelli first began organising the walks in 2011, after the Queensland Department of Agriculture removed funding for their last remaining wine industry staff member, who had previously been organising similar grower meetings sporadically over the years.
The unique growing conditions on the Granite Belt produce mild summers and cold, bitter winters, with minimal rainfall and heavy frosts, with temperatures of -5oC not uncommon overnight during winter. Located at an altitude of 700-1,000 metres above sea level, the area experiences summer-dominant rainfall.
Due to these unique conditions, information which is generally aimed at the southern wine regions which experience winter-dominant rainfall patterns, such as some of the excellent vineyard-related research and extension resources produced by the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), is not always directly applicable to Granite Belt conditions.
Standard advice, such as planting a cover crop in winter to take advantage of soil moisture (with aim it will ‘hay-off’ during the dry summer) or advising against irrigation prior to budburst can require some careful interpretation before it is delivered to Granite Belt winegrape growers.
Smith and Coelli help local growers to interpret the latest research and extension advice. Smith has a background in teaching and Coelli has a degree in Rural Science, allowing the women to combine their hands-on vineyard skills with their education experience and ensure that vineyard walk discussions are well-informed.
Attendees of the walks are almost always 100% local winegrape growers, but on a few walks each year university researchers are also invited to speak. Recent research topics have included surveys of bird life in vineyards, the use of drones to spray vineyards, and the application of biochar. Commercial representatives are also occasionally invited to present information on new products, such as organic herbicides, electric secateurs, and so on. Most walks, however, involve purely growers, and many “muddy boots” discussions.
In excess of 40 Granite Belt vineyards have hosted one of these vineyard walks (many on more than one occasion), and visitors from over 60 vineyards and industry organisations have signed the attendance registers at the walks over the years. The walks are officially hosted under the banner of the Wine Sub-Committee of Granite Belt Wine and Tourism (GBWT), and are free of charge for GBWT members, or $10 a walk for non-members.
The walks keep existing growers up-to-date, and have been crucial in providing friendly and welcoming introduction to newcomers to the industry, such as those who have purchased an existing vineyard or who are establishing a new vineyard.
The success of the Granite Belt over the past two decades has been built on cooperation and collaboration. Many existing vineyards and wineries are acutely aware that brand “Granite Belt” is key to their ongoing success, and hence are keen to ensure that all grapes grown (and wines produced) are of the highest quality. In addition to these vineyard walks, other generous Granite Belt volunteers organise winemaker meetings to blind-taste unfinished wines (two meetings per year) and also organise a series of bi-monthly industry dinner meetings that regularly attract over 40 attendees.
For more information on Granite Belt “Vineyard Walks” see:
https://granitebeltwine.info/vineyard-walks/
For more information on the Granite Belt wine region in general see:
https://granitebeltwinecountry.com.au/
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