Max Allen's New Book The Future Makers Australian Wines for the 21st century

Respected Australian wine writer/ commentator Max Allen's new book ‘The future makers Australian wines for the 21st century’ was released on October 1st 2010. As well as introducing the areas and people shaping Australia’s wine future, it takes a look at challenges Australia’s winemakers are facing (global warming, glo...bal financial turmoil, oversupply and so on) and their responses to these challenges.

There are regional chapters which feature profiles of top winemakers who are adopting amongst other things more sustainable ways of growing and making their wines to better capture their unique sense of place in those wines…which brings us to Battle of Bosworth’s entry in the book.

Joch is described as ‘one of the most important organic winemakers in Australia because he subverts most people’s preconception of what an organic winemaker should be. For a start he’s not an old, bearded hippy banging on about saving the planet; he looks and acts like one of the mob of youngish, enthusiastic growers and winemakers transforming McLaren Vale at the moment. …it’s precisely because he is so normal that he has been so influential.’

On our Chardonnay Viognier ‘Joch was one of the first in the region to inject some interest and life into his Chardonnay by picking the grapes a little early, fermenting in stainless steel and then blending in some barrel-fermented Viognier: the result is a wonderful tangy white ….’ On our reds ‘rich and exotic shiraz viognier, intensely blackcurranty cabernet sauvignon’.

There’s a fair bit more on Battle of Bosworth; Max’s book is well worth a look for its state of the nation look at the Australian wine industry. It’s a really nice looking book too. Published by Hardie Grant.
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Battle of Bosworth Double at the SA Wine of the Year Awards 2010

Battle of Bosworth had a great showing at the annual SA Wine of the Year Awards winning both the consumer and professional judges’ awards in the newly created certified organic/ biodynamic category.

Given that Joch was in the US selling the Spring Seed wines, it was up to Louise to don the frock and fake tan and head to the Intercontinental Hotel on Friday 10th September and soak up the glory. The photo attached was taken on my Blackberry by Froilan from Chace Agencies, our SA distributors. The quality is not great, but you get the idea.

The awards are in their 20th+ year and recognize the very best wines produced in South Australia. The awards are judged by an independent panel of the state’s leading wine judges. The awards are unique in having a separate set of amateur consumer judges who taste a selection of the best wines first chosen by the professional judges from more than 1000 entries.

The BoB 2010 Preservative Free Shiraz won the Professional judges award, and the 2009 Battle of Bosworth Cabernet Sauvignon the consumer award. Both wines were written up in the Advertiser by wine journo Tony Love, who saw The PF Shiraz as being ‘worth exploring for being a good McLaren Vale red as much as for its organic and preservative-free status.’

On the Cabernet; ‘What a double for the creative McLaren Vale crew behind this fruit-driven cabernet with classic cassis and a faint hint of mint. The consumers were entranced by their selection, which showed the best organic wines are going great guns.’

Thanks Tony

Vale Cru Tasting at the Victory Hotel Sunday 19th September 2010

Come and visit Battle of Bosworth and the rest of the Vale Cru at Doug Govan's magnificent Victory Hotel on Sunday the 19th September 2010 from 2-5pm and taste a great range of high quality small batch wines. Bookings essential, so head to http://www.valecru.com.au/ and follow the links to bookings. We look forward to seeing you then. cheers Louise

VIP Joel Amos

The week ahead is looking like doing some tasting notes (Joch I need some tasting feedback from you please for the 2009 Shiraz, 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon and 2009 Spring Seed Shiraz), bottle shots, trying to finalise the Battle of Bosworth brochure which I have been working on for light years, as well as fitting in a trip to the cinema to see 'Toy Story 3' in 3 D with the junior Bosworths.

On Sunday afternoon in the midst of all this planning we had a visitor. A VIP in fact - Joel Amos, the architect of the original Battle of Bosworth website ,a Willunga boy by birth and now based in Sydney working in the music industry. Before getting into the muso industy he worked at 2 of the best wine stores in the country, East End Cellars in Adelaide and Best Cellars on Crown Street in Sydney.

I met Joel as a very young man at Penny's Hill in the early part of the noughties when Joel was fresh out of a wine marketing degree at Adelaide Uni. I think I took over his desk actually at Penny's Hill, so it is a miracle he is still talking to me. Anyhow, Joel has just returned from a European eating tour of the top restaurants on the San Pellegrino list of 2010. Sounded amazing. Great to see you Joel. xxxx

A Bright Idea for a New Wine Label Or Has This Been Done Before?

I can't remember or has there been negative talk about critter wines recently? Anyway I was racing down the driveway trying to get the eldest to school on time when a mob of kangaroos burst out of the Road Block Tahbilk clone Shiraz right in front of us and scarpered away across the road to the McDonald's Shiraz next door. You actually have to look quite carefully to spot the hopping critter.

Could very easily have been roo in a plum sauce on the menu tonight/ large repair bill on my car. We sometimes see the odd stray roo loose in the Hill Shiraz (which is further up towards the house than these shots) but to see the 5 or 6 that we saw today is rare.

I have also added a shot of the Bosworth Road Block Shiraz - see above - (planted 1985) showing the soursobs beginning to stir. In a month's time there will be a veritable carpet of these eye-achingly day-glo yellow flowers. The soursob is the 'pretty yellow flower' - or a massive weed, depending on if you are a gardener or not, which features on our Battle of Bosworth labels. Their super aggressive growing activities help us contain other weeds in our organic vineyards.

Nice Reviews for Battle of Bosworth Wines

As modest as I like to think we are (Joch more so than I) it is always nice to receive some words of praise. So I was particularly pleased to lay my sweaty little mitts on a copy of Campbell Mattinson and Gary Walsh's Big Red Wine Book 2010/ 2011 (Thanks Rebecca Coombs from Wirra for collecting it, I’ll be round shortly with a cheque).

Battle of Bosworth Wines are very well represented in the book, which is nice. The 2007 White Boar (our homage to Amarone) is ‘impressive stuff’ and gets 93 points, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon gets 93 points also, and GW and CM generously comment that we have ‘nailed this release’ and the 2008 Shiraz Viognier weighs in at 92 points as a ‘velvet glove kind of wine ......with lovely fragrance.’

How clever you are Bozzie, even if you have spent the last 2 weeks drinking Campari and sodas, surfing, boogie boarding and generally doing bugger all on some tropical island.

General Update

While I slave away at home organising the new order form, booking bottling, organising some new neck tags for both Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines, Joch is as you see indulging his favourite hobby (2nd from the right) on some tropical paradise 4 hours boat ride from Padang in West Sumatra along with other McLaren Vale usual suspects. Meanwhile Jock Harvey's (3rd from right) lovely girlfriend has taken a nice bottle shot of the new Battle of Bosworth Preservative Free Shiraz.

Spring Seed Wines Distributor Visit - Tastevin from IDAHO, USA

It has been a busy April at Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines with visitors from all over the globe dropping by, including Louise’s mother over from the UK for Peggy’s 3rd birthday on the 24th (Peggy was very nearly called Digger). We had the 7-strong team from Tastevin, who are our distributors in Idaho over for a visit and tasting on the 27th April lead by Steve Thies and his wife Melissa.

It was getting a little dark (and cold by Willunga standards) by the time they found us on Gaffney Road, so we retired to the welcoming Victory Hotel to taste some Spring Seed and Battle of Bosworth wines, have some tucker, and take a peek at some 2010 wines from tank. A mid week dinner at the Victory is a rare occurrence for the BoB and SS team so sales and marketing may have over-indulged a little, but she is going to make the royal assumption that everyone else enjoyed themselves as much as she did. Boris the Golden Retriever certainly enjoyed Bob’s attentions.


We hope we inspired Tastevin to fly the Spring Seed flag when they get back to Idaho. By the way, a little known fact: Sun Valley, Idaho, one of the oldest ski resorts in North America sported the world’s first ever chairlift.

Northern Exposure

Early Saturday morning Joch welcomed the entire cast of The Wine Tradition and Cuttings Wine from Brisbane in Queensland. These guys (and one gal) sell both Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines into the Sunshine State, and do a wonderful job. Front men David Sanders (ex 80’s SANFL player, can’t remember what team but he was very good apparently) and Tod Williams were there as was Mel Thomson, legendary Queensland wine industry man along with youthful (and taller than I remember - lifts?) David Bone, front man of Cuttings Wine. Joch did a tasting of all wines current and upcoming, showing some tank samples and a couple of special projects. Piglet the kitten was also present and correct without being especially helpful.

Joch took everyone (12 at last count) on a tour of the vineyards before Louise dispensed yummy Panini du jour and coffee from 3 Monkeys in Willunga as fortification for their trip down to Coonawarra, packed like sardines into a very cosy Hiace van. We tried to send them the scenic route via the Wellington ferry and down the Coorong to Robe and then back inland, but in their vehicle this might have taken 8 hours. We did hear unconfirmed reports of a brawl at a bikie pub in Robe involving a small van and a load of blokes and one Sheila, but nothing since. Cheers TWT and Cuttings and keep up the good work of getting BoB and Spring Seed out to the discerning punters.

Last Orders at The Bar Please Gents or Let's get that Petit Verdot Off

Finally it’s all over – Joch and the youthful Ledgard mafia (Reece and Clint) picked the Hill Petit Verdot yesterday on a glorious McLaren Vale Autumn day (21 deg C) and finally put the picking part of harvest behind us until next year. Now a bit of crushing, fermenting, pressing off to barrel and all the wines will be in and safe.

Next stage of vineyard/ winemaking/ sales/ promotion will be a little light disking by Joch, followed by him packing his bags and heading off to promote the Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed Wines into our newest market, Vietnam. He will be doing a series of dinners and tastings in some amazing 5 star resorts. Not sure I allocated the jobs correctly in this case.

The sum total of my sales and promotion activity will be a Friday night tasting at the Icons of South Australia store at Adelaide airport on Friday the 21st May. Our importer in Vietnam, Alex, emailed me to ask if after his work duties are over, whether Joch would need a couple of days of R and R at one of the fancy resorts….no, I said, he will not Alex. Make him work, in fact, make him work hard, I said Alex, because at the end of May he will be heading to some remote Indonesian island for TWO WEEKS on a two week surfing safari boys holiday. I think the sales and marketing manager has gone soft in her old age.