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In the early noughties, the media started to discover the wines of the Canberra District, and the charge was lead by the very savvy Tim Kirk of Clonakilla. Tim’s shiraz viognier really started to grab national attention and his charming personality, combined with his beautiful wine helped Clonakilla into establishing itself as an iconic winery.
At his eponymous winery, Ken Helm was also making ground with his stunning Riesling. Ken has a reputation amongst the wine media as a vocal promoter of riesling and the region. So much so that he was recently awarded an Order of Australia for his service to the cool climate wine industry and riesling.
Andrew on the other hand, is not particulary comfortable with spruiking his wares, and happy to just hide in the Kyeema winery and potter around perfecting his wines. Even before we bought the winery, I used to watch this dark horse with interest, dying to get hold of his wines and shout to the world about how good they were, so when we formed Capital Wines in partnership with the McEwins and purchased Kyeema Wines, I was unbelievably excited.
As Huon Hooke said in his speech, at a recent Canberra dinner - “Andrew - I am glad Australia will finally get a chance to taste your beauiful wines”. (or something to that effect)
I am sure that Andrew is often stunned by my crazy ‘big picture ideas’ and often unchecked enthusiasm. One day I was looking at the bentonite clay, the product left from fining white wine and exclaimed “gee that would make a good face mask, we should make some out of it”. Andrew just looked at me and said “GO AWAY!” That pretty much sums up our relationship as business partners, wine maker and wine marketer.
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