Southern belle

A wave of sustainable winemakers in South Australia’s McLaren Vale are leading the way in adapting to climate change with award-winning wines, writes MAX ALLEN.

- MAX ALLEN

Last year was a big one for McLaren Vale’s sustainability-minded winegrowers: the awards kept raining down on this popular South Australian wine region. At the Great Wine Capitals Best of Wine Tourism Awards announced in Bordeaux, Gemtree Wines was named global winner for Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices.

At the Australian Organic Awards, Gemtree won Best Alcohol Product of the Year for their delicious, slurpy 2019 Luna Temprana Tempranillo, while Angove Family Winemakers – based in the Riverland but with vineyards and a cellar door in McLaren Vale – was named Business of the Year. And at the McLaren Vale Wine Show, brothers Malcolm and Richard Leask of Hither & Yon took out the trophy for top wine of the show, a 2018 red made from the climate-change-suited Sicilian grape variety, nero d’Avola; Richard has also just finished travelling for his Nuffield Scholarship looking at regenerative farming practices around the world. For quite a few years now, McLaren Vale has laid a pretty convincing claim to being the greenest wine region in Australia.