Legacy delivering rich rewards

Pioneering a cool climate wine region is a risky business. Physically demanding as well as costly and time-consuming, the task is always subject to the vagaries of site, soil and season. 

So it's hardly the kind of project you'd expect a couple of septuagenarians to be taking on during their final years of active life together.

But that's exactly what Margaret Pooley and her late husband Denis did when they planted 861 vines of Riesling and Pinot Noir on a small property just outside Campania, in Tasmania's Coal River Valley. 

It was 1985. Time for moving on, the 90-year-old recalls. Denis had not long retired to the suburbs after half a century in the motor trade. The humdrum of city living left the couple yearning for a hobby to fill their remaining years with satisfaction and delight. 

Why not plant a vineyard? They'd make a little wine for relatives and friends to share. 

Now looking back on those pioneering years, the family matriarch chuckles at the suggestion the couple also helped create a little bit of history.

"People thought we'd gone mad," she says, outlining the way in which Pooley Wines literally started from scratch and grew to become an award-winning producer with a reputation for long-lived wines.

"I think a lot of people were a wee bit envious at the time. Everyone in the family thought that it was a marvellous idea. Cooinda Vale had just come onto the market, and our little house there was only five years old. There was no garden or any vineyard. Denis felt it would be a good place to start growing some vines. We got some cuttings from Peter McKay at Pembroke, and away we went."

Today, those same vines are tended under the watchful eyes of grandson Matthew Pooley.

"My grandfather was a great lover of food and wine, and this vineyard really was his passion," he says, recounting how Denis's death in 1993 had brought the 23-year-old agricultural college graduate down to earth with a thud.

"It was Denis's wish that the property should stay within the family after his death. And with my dad John having full-time involvement in the car business, vineyard management fell on my shoulders. I was the next person in line.

"Dad could see its potential, but I really had only limited interest back then. It wasn't a passion like it's become now. I was more curious about what was going on in the world. Still, I grew up on the land, and during the years I spent away at college, I learned that in order to survive in a competitive market-place, you had to gain the right level of knowledge and experience, and be totally professional in all that you do."

Matthew returned from work on the mainland in 1994. He soon set about expanding the vineyard under the unerring gaze of his grandmother. In the years since, their partnership – despite differences in age and experience – has been characterised by mutual respect and understanding, rare qualities in the modern business world. And, like the vineyard itself, it's been a partnership that's brought about its own sweet rewards.

"I didn't think Matt was very interested in the grapes at first, but I think he's done a great job," Margaret adds in her gentle Scottish brogue, one that's rich in pride and contentment.

"Den would have loved to have seen Matt coming on, doing all that he's done. It's been a real labour of love."

Battling the elements and defying the odds hasn't always been easy, Matthew admits, but running Pooley Wines is not something he's having to do entirely on his own. These days, John and wife Libby share responsibility for marketing the family's portfolio.

In March 2006, Butcher's Hill Vineyard - overlooking the historic property of Belmont Lodge - yielded its first Pinot Noir harvest. The Richmond site is not just John and Libby's home, it's home to 5,000 vines Matthew planted there in 2003. Barely a decade earlier, the young man with the weight of family responsibility on his shoulders had juggled mixed farming and casual work to become a veritable 'jack of all trades' in the wine industry. Somehow he had also found time for TAFE courses and vintage experience with Cambridge-based contract winemaker, Andrew Hood.

"That was a terrific time," Matthew says, remembering the countless hours spent priming pumps, washing barrels, and hand-plunging small vats of fermenting wine.

"It really opened my eyes to being involved in the industry. I was the first Pooley male to work outside the motor trade in a couple of generations, and I saw the whole wine process, from growing the grapes to bottling the wines. For a while, I was on a very steep learning curve. But I found that if you're prepared to have a bit of a go, you can learn a lot about wine and winemaking."

"Right now, this is a very exciting and challenging time in my life. The original 'postage stamp' vineyard has been expanded to over five hectares, and a vineyard of that size – along with the young vineyard at Richmond – means that Pooley Wines is a fairly serious business operation. We have tight production schedules and a wine marketing machine that's really only just getting up to speed.

"The critical part is the growing of good fruit. After all, around 90 percent of a wine is made in the vineyard. That's where we really have to be on the ball."

So is there another Pooley waiting in the wings to share responsibility?

Matthew's sister Anna looks best qualified. She's a career sparkling winemaker, currently with the Foster's Wine Group. The company has a base at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, and coming back to Tasmania doesn't seem likely just yet. But that doesn't stop brother and sister from sharing ideas on the growing and making that goes into each of the family's precious Coal River Valley wines.

"Matthew and Anna quite often get together on the telephone and swap technical bits and pieces," Margaret explains.

"Who knows what will happen next? I hope that when my time comes to go to 'the big vigneron in the sky' Matthew will be able to carry on with the family business, and then pass it on to his son.

"Two-year-old Oliver is already doing his share of sniffing and spitting!'

First published Autumn 2006 issue: Tasmania 40° South