September 28, 2015
If you’ve ever wondered how grapes get turned into wine, you can have all your questions answered at one of the South Burnett’s largest wineries during the October long weekend.
On Saturday, October 3 and Sunday, October 4, Kingsley Grove Estate near Kingaroy will be running completely free one hour Wine Master Classes at 10:00am and 3:30pm.
Winemaker Simon Berry will give guests a VIP tour of Kingsley Grove’s modern, state of the art winery, along with a detailed explanation of the wine making process and the nuances involved in making wine in the South Burnett.
Apart from understanding the entire wine-making process from the moment the grapes go into the crushers until finished bottles roll off the production line, each Master Class will also explain how the processes that any particular wine might go through at any winery will vary depending on what type of wine the winemaker is trying to produce.
Most white wines (though not all) are meant to be drunk “young” and tend to get moved through a winery fairly quickly.
But most red wines are usually meant to be drunk when they’ve acquired a bit of age and character, so they can spend months to years in a winery’s oak barrels before they’re ready for bottling.
The amount of time a wine spends in a winery also depends on what the winemaker is trying to achieve as an end result.
Australians tend to favour straight varietal wines (ie wines made from a single grape variety, such as shiraz or merlot) while Europeans tend to favour blends made of many different grape varieties.
So when Australian winemakers produce blends, they need to balance the characteristics of all the different varieties they use against one another to achieve the effect they want in the finished product – an extremely complex task that demands a lot of skill and experience.
However, Simon will explain all this in clear, jargon-free English and provide visitors with a rare chance to see modern Australian wine-making plant and equipment up close.
There’ll also be vertical tastings of some varieties (ie guests can get to taste the same wine across different vintages to see how the wine alters depending on the year, how it was made, how its flavour changes with age, and other factors – vertical tastings are one of the quickest ways to realise how dramatically a wine can alter depending on a wide range of variables).
Afterwards, guests can relax at Kingsley Grove’s cellar door, taste the winery’s wide range of wines and even enjoy a fresh pizza cooked in the Estate’s wood-fired pizza oven.
Kingsley Grove’s pizzas are renowned for their sensational taste – and the Estate’s sangiovese (an Italian wine variety now grown in the South Burnett) is renowned as the perfect accompaniment to pizza.
The winery itself will be open from 10:00am to 5:00pm on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and pizzas can be purchased at any time.
While bookings for a visit to Kingsley Grove (or a pizza) aren’t essential, if you’d like to take a Wine Master Class spaces are limited so a booking is highly advisable.
You can make one by phoning 0414-230-128 or by emailing them.
You can also find out more about Kingsley Grove Estate on South Burnett Wine.
