Consistency of high quality is how I would describe the Yalumba range of wines. Yalumba is the oldest Australian family owned winery with about 160 years of age and manages to make well crafted wines across all their ranges, from their affordable to less affordable bottles. Now this is not easy to achieve at all, especially when you have such a big range as Yalumba. So what is their secret?                 This is what I tried to understand while meeting up with Kevin Glastonbury, senior winemaker at Yalumba at a recent tasting in London. Kevin is responsible for the premium ranges of red wines, amongst which the famous Octavius and Signature ranges. Kevin got into winemaking as he was curious to understand how grapes could be turned into an exciting liquid. He started to learn about it and never looked back. Kevin reveals a bit of himself and his winemaking secrets in our interview… Olivier Bourseau: Kevin Glastonbury, very nice meeting you! After leaving school you went straight to the Seppelt Training School to learn about winemaking. When and how did you decide to become a winemaker? Kevin Glastonbury: It was probably about 10 years after I had joined Seppelt. The way Seppelt worked was I had a lot more interaction with the winemakers than the other staff. I was working in the laboratory with the winemakers and watching what they did but I had no real interest in wine. But I grew to understand what they were doing and what they were achieving by having grapes come in and then wine go out. So I thought well, I am in the middle of all of this, I am only seeing one bit of it, and what I would like to do is seeing the whole bit of it. And that’s really what I got into and it was really talking and listening to those guys, some great names from the industry back in those days! They told me a lot about how to nurture grapes to become wine. Picture below - Menzies Vineyard owned by Yalumba               Olivier Bourseau: So do you like more the product (the wine), or process of making it and working with nature? Kevin Glastonbury: I don’t have background in winemaking. Lot of people have got family history or family vineyards. I just love seeing the process. I love seeing how grapes from different regions and different areas become wine and I just got interested in that. And I just love seeing how guys can turn a bunch of grapes into some stunning wine and how the finished product excited people and that excited me too. The actual winemaking side of it is really easy I find, but the blending side is really hard and that is where you have got to learn and get a lot of experience. I've already gained experience but there is always much to learn! Olivier Bourseau: You are a specialist of Barossa Valley, home to some of the best Shirazes in the world, as you have been working there for many years. Climate is very warm though especially during the summer season with dry and sunny weather which can lead to extreme ripeness of the grapes. How do you manage in this environment to produce world class wines? Kevin Glastonbury: That’s a tricky question and it is a very long winded answer! But Ill give you a short answer. The Barossa has a very Mediterranean climate so we are used to have warm summers and rain falls mainly in winter. We have quite dry summers so we do get rapid ripening but we don’t always have really hot summers. We can have quite cool summers in January and February in fact. Our main warm months are really February and March. The ripening period and harvesting period has become more February now, and it used to be more March. But because of global warming perhaps everything moved forward a little bit. I guess our grape goal is to manage the fruit on the vine so by giving enough canopy as in leaf, it gives protection and it doesn’t ripen too quickly. And with irrigation, getting the crop level right is important. So instead of cropping everything at one tonne to the acre, where it will ripen very quickly, some go with 2 tonnes to the acre, some others at 3 tonnes to the acre. So you have the right amount of fruit with the right amount of leaf coverage. It is a balanced vine and it ripens a little later. And that tends to work really well. I mean if everybody grew low crops of Shiraz, then it would all ripen quickly and it would be much too hard. Picture below - Old Grenache Vines in Yalumba vineyards. Some of them were planted in 1898.                 Olivier Bourseau: You joined Yalumba in 1999. Yalumba is the oldest family owned winery in Australia and produces very good quality across all your range of different wines. What is the secret to your consistency? Kevin Glastonbury: The fact is we are a family owned winery and have been for a long time. Next year 2009 will be our 160th anniversary so there is a lot of history and there is a lot of tradition. And we as winemakers have that in us. We are not just employed to work at Yalumba. We are part of Yalumba. So we are all very focused about maintaining a very high standard and we do it because we love making wine but we also love working for Yalumba. We get a lot of little lurks and perks like I may be coming to London and meeting people like you and having fun over here and this is part of the package of being a winemaker, and that is their number one focus. We are not just making wine, we are making great wine for Yalumba because there is so much history and heritage that we have to live up to. Olivier Bourseau: I personally really like shiraz as a grape variety and like your Octavius. I tried the 2001 2002 and 2003. Now 90 litres’ oak barrel is shockingly small compared to 225 barriques or bigger. Still the wine is not overpowered by oak. What is the secret? Kevin Glastonbury: We have been using that small barrel ever since Octavius was born back in 1988. And we don’t use it in the same percentages as we used to. It used to be 100% octaves. Now we do use octaves and bigger barrels (300 litres and barriques which is 225 litres). What we have decided to do and this is really my drive since 1999, is to open up some options for us. So we have got a bit of French oak, a bit of American, a bit of Hungarian oak, and different size barrels so we can have a better balanced wine. But the thing about the small barrel is you really need some big, sweet, rich, powerful Barossa shiraz, and if you have that sort of fruit it goes into small barrel which has a very high wood to wine ratio. If you have got that powerful fruit, it can balance out that oak. But we have also felt that wines were quite strong with oak in the early days. What we have needed to do was to balance them out with some stylish French oak and Hungarian oak and different barrels to give us options at blending time. Olivier Bourseau: Apart from South Australia, what are the other wine regions, and grape varieties which you like or have an interest? Kevin Glastonbury: It is quite easy. The first answer is the Rhone Valley. I mean to me I love everything that comes out of the Rhone Valley. And I know Shiraz and Grenache which I make, but I think what they do is something special. And this might come as a shock to people but I really love Burgundy. I think Beaune is one of the loveliest cities in the world and I love the Pinot Noir from Burgundy, and this is coming from a big Barossa Shiraz maker! Another area which I really like is Washington State. Some of the Shiraz coming from out of there is very special like finer, a bit spicy and savoury and really stylish and I think they are coming a long way but I guess I am always a bit of a red focus. That’s just me I am a red man! Olivier Bourseau: Thank you very much Kevin!