April 23, 2012
Barambah Wines at Redgate has mothballed its cellar door for the next two years.
However the company says it will continue to produce wines from its Redgate vineyards and retail them through the firm’s Brisbane office; their website; and existing cellar door, restaurant and hotel outlets (including several in the South Burnett, such as Taste South Burnett in Kingaroy).
Barambah Wines owner Steve Wilson said the decision to shut down the Redgate cellar door was taken at Easter “with some difficulty”.
“Like most South Burnett wine producers, we lost our entire crop in the 2011 floods. And our 2012 grape harvest was disappointing too. So recently we decided that until weather patterns return to normal, we’d be better off shifting our focus to wine production and sales instead,” he said.
Former Barambah cellar door manager Nick Pseudovs has now taken up a position with Dan Murphy’s in Bundaberg as Head of Fine Wines. And Barambah’s consultant winemaker and Master Of Wine Peter Scudamore-Smith will take on an “expanded” role in day-to-day operations, Mr Wilson said.
“We’ve been encouraged by enormous growth in our Wine Club and restaurant sales, which has reinforced our belief that the Queensland wine industry has a bright future ahead of it,” Mr Wilson said.
“It’s also very pleasing to see that the anti-Queenland wine sentiment that seems to have affected many hotels in the past appears to be turning around, too.
“Many of the State’s leading restaurants now want to carry Queensland wines on their wine lists because consumers are now asking for them.”
Steve Wilson and his wife Jane purchased the Redgate property – the former Barambah Ridge vineyards – in 2006 and re-opened the cellar door in 2009.
The cellar door was closed briefly between March and June 2010 after the departure of former manager Manda Duffy and the appointment of Nick Pseudovs, but has traded from Thursdays to Mondays ever since.
