Home makers

Few cellar doors in Tasmania offer the quality of visitor experience that's provided when you stop by Home Hill, 35km south of Hobart. The facility not only boasts a well-appointed wine service area - with staff that are knowledgeable and friendly – it's barely a grape toss from the vineyard's award-winning restaurant. 

You want chews with some views? How do floor-to-ceiling glass and rammed-earth walls sound? Oh… and 6ha of carefully manicured vines.

All are overlooked by Sleeping Beauty, the much-admired nearby mountain range resembling the profile of a female in repose.

Yes, Ranelagh and the surrounding Huon Valley offer some extraordinary visitor experiences… but what are the wines like at Terry and Rosemary Bennett's home on the hill? It this all puff and no stuff?

Nothing could be further from the truth. The year to date has been spectacularly successful for the couple.

Cast your mind back to the 2015 Tasmanian Wine Show held back in mid-January.

The roll-call of Home Hill success there was incredible. Leading the way were the trophy-winning 2013 Kelly's Reserve Pinot Noir (Best Pinot Noir and Best Red of Show) and the 2008 Estate Pinot Noir (Best Museum Wine). A fourth trophy was awarded when Home Hill was named 2015 Pinot Noir Producer of the Year.

The 2013 Landslide Pinot Noir and 2012 Estate Pinot Noir also won gold, while the 2013 and 2008 Kelly's Reserve Chardonnays were both silver medal winners.

The annual event is highly regarded by those in the industry. It's held exclusively for producers of Tasmanian wine. Leading Sydney wine judge and critic Huon Hooke is the show's current chair of judges.

Fast forward to mid-2015 and we find Home Hill's 2014 Estate Pinot Noir picking up gold medals and trophies at the Australian Cool Climate Wine Show and the 2015 Cowra Wine Show.

Visitors to the Home Hill cellar door during the coming week had better prepare themselves for more incredible news. The vineyard's 2014 Kelly's Reserve Pinot Noir came away from the 2015 Royal Melbourne Wine Awards (RMWA) with two of the event's major trophies, including the celebrated Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Best Young Red.

Also awarded was the James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir.

The trophies were accepted by owners Terry and Rosemary Bennett at a presentation dinner held in Melbourne on 15 October.

The couple's celebration is bound to have gone on well into the evening last Thursday. Home Hill is very much a family operation. Son Sean Bennett manages the vineyard while daughter Kelly Kumar is responsible for front office and marketing.

Previously known as the Royal Melbourne Wine Show, the event has a long and proud history. It was established in 1884 by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria 'to promote excellence in Australian wine and winemaking practice.'

The inaugural show was a modest affair. There were just five white wine exhibits, four red wines and no sparkling wine entries at all. Eight out of the nine wines judged were grown and made in suburban Melbourne vineyards.

Jimmy Watson winners, meanwhile, have traditionally been plucked from the ranks of South Australia's wine industry. Indeed, during the trophy's 43-year history, only four wines from Victoria have made their way to the winner's circle. (Only three winners in the past 24 years.)

Home Hill's success after five days of judging means that two Tasmanian wines have won the Jimmy Watson in the past four years. Glaetzer-Dixon Family Winemakers broke the ice in 2011 with the 2010 vintage of their flagship wine, the Mon Pére Shiraz.

This year's Royal Melbourne Wine Awards had an additional Tasmanian flavour. It was chaired by Jim Chatto, chief winemaker for McWilliam's Wines. Chatto and his wife Daisy are establishing their own Pinot Noir vineyard at Glaziers Bay. Close by them is Elsewhere Vineyard, which enjoyed very significant Pinot Noir show success in the hands of its founders, Eric and Jette Phillips.

A senior wine show judge with over 17 years' experience, Chatto was seconded into his Melbourne leadership role at the last minute. The incumbent chair of judges - Tom Carson - broke his leg only days before judging began.

Chatto says this year's team of 35 judges tasted and assessed a total of 3097 wine entries from 537 Australian producers.

"The quality of the top wines really showcases the wonderful diversity and excellence of Australian wine," he says.

"The major awards were shared among no less than 16 producers, across some 12 wine regions, attesting to the depth and breadth of quality winemaking in Australia today.

"The strength of the 2013 and 2014 vintages was the real highlight of the judging. It provided great discussion - and no doubt great drinking - for lovers of great wine. In my 18 years of judging, I have never seen such a strong group of wines in the trophy taste-offs. It was exciting stuff!"

"We're finding it hard to sink in," Rosemary Bennett admits.

 "The win is a win for all Tasmanian wine producers. It's wonderful news. We've been overwhelmed by all the congratulations we've received… and orders for our wine have been flooding in since the trophy announcement was made."

Equally chuffed are the makers of the award-winning wine.

Gilli and Paul Lipscombe quit jobs and careers in London in 2005 to start afresh, together in wine. The couple spent the next four years studying and learning the ropes before moving to Tasmania and buying a moribund vineyard near Cradoc in the Huon Valley.

It now goes by the wonderfully fanciful name of Sailor Seeks Horse.

Strapped for cash, the couple managed to keep their heads above water by taking jobs elsewhere in the industry. At first, it was working for a large contract winemaker in southern Tasmania.

Paul Lipscombe subsequently took on management of the Chatto family's new vineyard at Glaziers Bay, while Jim Chatto maintained his key company and consultant roles in the Hunter Valley and northern Tasmania.

Four years ago, Gilli Lipscombe took on the role of contract winemaker for Home Hill.

"As part of the arrangement, we're allowed to use Home Hill's winery to make wine from our own vineyard," she explains.

"We have our own tanks and barrels but use Home Hill's press, de-stemmer and pumps, as well as the building in which we conduct our winemaking operations. Finished wine is then bottled and stored at the Pooley family's winery just outside Hobart."

Thrilled with the Bennetts' latest show success, the Lipscombes have no illusions when it comes to plotting the likely path of their own future success.

"We bought our property in 2010," Gilli says.

"It was already an established vineyard of 6.5ha, planted in 2005. The place had been dry farmed and managed on a shoestring budget. By the time we finally took up ownership, half the vines were dead and there were blackberries everywhere. Many of them were head high.

"The surviving vines were in a pretty sorry state. They needed to be nursed back to full health. That's been a long, slow process. The Huon Valley has a long growing season and can be pretty marginal in terms of ripening fruit.

"There's no large company here. It's only ever going to be the domain of small-scale producers; growers with skill and determination to grow top-quality fruit. There's a fair degree of financial risk attached to that."

The Lipscombes believe the 2015 vintage in the valley was another very high quality one, albeit with reduced crop levels. Last year's prolonged cool, damp weather during spring and early summer disturbed flowering and fruit set among Chardonnay and Pinot Noir plantings.

"But we love it here," Paul admits.

"Our intention is to build a winery and a cellar door of our own. This is such a beautiful place. We wouldn't want to work anywhere else."