We release the our top Shiraz - The Hanisch - from the magnificent 2005 vintage plus two huge Shiraz from Magpie Estate - the Very Rare 'Malcolm' Shiraz 2005 and 'The Election' Shiraz 2005. Download Now
Every year we employ a "flying winemaker", a winemaker from the Northern Hemisphere who comes to work in the winery in their country's off-season.
Marion comes to us from the beer brewing south of Austria, and her family are still located there in Kaernten. She has spent the last few years making wine in the north of the country in the famous wine region of Weinviertel.
During the off-season, Marion has traipsed to the Salton Winery in Brazil for the 2008 vintage, and to Quartz Reef in the Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand. It was at Quartz Reef that Marion discovered the joys of foot-stomping, crushing the grapes with her bare legs. It's fine, for the first few batches, but then the acid gets in under the skin, your legs turn purple, and they start to itch. It all adds to the romance!
Although we have a picture of Marion here "mucking out" a tank, the grapes have already been crushed, fermented, and drained off skins, and Marion is collecting the marc to be gently pressed in order to extract more juice from the skins, and the precious tannins that give our Barossa wines their full-body and longevity.
Marion had wanted to be a winemaker from about the age of 24, although she had never seen a vineyard, nor had any idea how wine was made. Persistance and hard work, and the freedom to travel, not just across her own country, but across the world, has seen her learn some very valuable skills in the winemaking arena.
It is this persistance which got her this job at Rolf Binder's Veritas Winery. Her senior winemaker in Austria had come to Australia for a holiday in 2007 and visited our Tasting Room and winery, and was very impressed. It was he who pushed her, made her send the thousands of e-mails, faxes, and make endless middle-of-the-night phonecalls, to eventually come and work here in the Barossa.
Marion fits in very well with everyone with her friendly and outgoing personality and fun sense of humour. Her ability to hold and pat spiders (Huntsmen, White-Tails, Daddy Long-Legs - we've warned her about the little black ones with the red stripe!) has shown us that she is also obviously completely mad.
Rolf in 1988 on storage vessels at the back of the old winery on
Langmeil Road.
Liquor Licensing Act 1997: It is an offence to sell or supply liquor to a person under the age of 18 years, or to obtain liquor on behalf of a person under the age of 18 years. This web site is operated by Veritas Winery Pty Ltd ABN: 80 098 219 553 Licence No: 50800044
Red Wines
Although we have a picture of Marion here "mucking out" a tank, the grapes have already been crushed, fermented, and drained off skins, and Marion is collecting the marc to be gently pressed in order to extract more juice from the skins, and the precious tannins that give our Barossa wines their full-body and longevity.
