Qantas/The Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year 2001
Once again the Qantas/The Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year award has exposed a dazzling array of talent. No wonder the Australian wine industry has been so successful in both the domestic and export markets, when its leaders include winemakers of the calibre of our 2001 finalists: Stuart Anderson (consultant), Gary Baldwin (consultant), Nigel Dolan (Beringer Blass), John Duval (Penfolds), Gary Farr (Bannockburn Vineyards), Joe Grilli (Primo Estate), Clare Halloran (TarraWarra Estate), Stephen Pannell (BRL Hardy), Iain Riggs (Brokenwood) and Andrew Wigan (Peter Lehmann).
Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Qantas, AGT WINE has been able to profile these 10 winemakers during 2001. Two of the nominees have been previous finalists for the award — Gary Farr of Bannockburn (in 2000) and Stephen Pannell of BRL Hardy (in 1999). The eight finalists nominated for the first time this year bring to 32 the total number of winemakers whose stories have been told in the magazine over the four years that the award has been running.
The judges of the award are all regular contributors to AGT WINE: associate editor Peter Forrestal (chairperson), Peter Bourne, Maryann Egan, Huon Hooke and Jeremy Oliver. As the award is made for excellence in winemaking, the focus of the judges has been on the quality of the finalists' wines in recent times, particularly those released over the past year or so. Consideration is given to performance in tastings, such as those conducted to produce AGT WINE's Top 20 articles and to evaluate new releases. As well as this, the judges taste hundreds of wines through their involvement in show judging and in the compilation of books such as the Penguin Good Australian Wine Guide, The On-Wine Australian Wine Annual and Quaff! Best Wines in Australia Under $15.
Discussion during judging is fierce as the relative merits of each of the finalists are analysed and the judges are drawn in by the stories that lie behind the success of each of the winemakers. They become increasingly impressed and convinced that the Australian wine industry is served by some of the world's best winemakers — by men and women whose wines can be enjoyed alongside the greatest produced anywhere around the globe.
The winner is Gary Farr.
The judges are delighted to announce Gary Farr as the winner of the Qantas/The Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year 2001.
Gary Farr is a passionate winemaker with an instinctive feel for wine; a stylist who ignores fashion and convention and makes what he likes to drink. He is happiest when toiling among the vines, ensuring that quality begins there. To quote Huon Hooke, "Farr is a vigneron: that wonderful, holistic word meaning someone who grows grapes and makes wine as though it is one and the same activity."
Farr has been almost totally responsible for the establishment, development, maturity and fame of Bannockburn Vineyards in Victoria. He showed his class as a winemaker when his 1998 vintage was destroyed by hail — his colleagues contributed grapes from around the country and Farr produced outstanding-quality wines from chardonnay, pinot noir and shiraz that were distinctly Bannockburn yet different from those produced from the vineyard near Geelong. His Bannockburn Pinot Noir (to be served in Qantas' First Class cabins towards the end of this year) and Chardonnay, and reserve Serré Pinot Noir and SRH (for Bannockburn founder Stuart Hooper) Chardonnay are world-class wines.
Also, Gary Farr has developed his own vineyard, which is contiguous to Bannockburn. The first four wines released this year under the "By Farr" label are outstanding. And sneak previews hint that the next releases are even better.
Gary Farr, an intense winemaker with an instinctive feel for wine, is a deserved winner of the Qantas/The Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year 2001.