What does an average day for two Mum’s with eight kids between them PLUS a vineyard to run look like? Can you tell us if your vintage period is a CRAZY juggle between kids and harvesting grapes?
“Between my sister Claire and I, we have eight kids. There are five girls and three boys that are aged between 14 to 21 years. They are all very close and have grown up together. Claire and I share the same values and priorities. We always want to be engaged with our kids, allowing us to be a team and back each other up.” This is their story!
All the kids have been involved in everything on the vineyard. From pruning through to helping with wine tastings as they have grown into adults. Over the years, during the vintage, the kids have had to deal with being orphans. They have had to look after each other and do things like prepare meals.
There is a difference in how we run during the school term to how we run during school holidays. School holidays are all hands-on deck. Over the last 16 years, the kids have actively taken part in helping us with the farm work, both doing helpful and unhelpful things!
Over the years, Claire and I have become masters of pulling together to get all the jobs done. I can remember when I once had to do a parent-teacher interview over the phone. In the background, there was a truckie waiting to be loaded and Claire on the forklift ready to start. I had to tell them all to wait two minutes as I finished the parent-teacher interview. The truck driver just said, ‘Crikey, no way could I juggle that!’ But this is what we have had to do to fit it all in.
What varieties of grapes do you grow? Do you have any niche boutique varieties?
Our 60 hectare (Ha) vineyard, Lanacoona Estate, is situated at Wrattonbully. We sit among the rolling hills of the South Australian Naracoorte Ranges. We have a cool maritime climate that is ideal for growing premium wine grapes, and we grow the grapes that are known to perform well in our region:
Cabernet Sauvignon
Shiraz
Pinot Gris
Chardonnay
Our soil is free-draining terra rossa, which is ideal for viticulture. The limestone beneath the ground gives us an edge for growing grapes. Because vines don’t like having wet feet, after a rain the limestone drains the moisture away, keeping the ground ideal for the vine to flourish in. But the limestone ground can make life interesting. You can be putting a vine post into the ground, and it can disappear as it falls into a cave underneath!
Do you manually pick and prune the vines?
Because we have such a large operation, we machine pick most and handpick for the customers who request it. Pruning is started with the machine and finished by hand. We are just about to begin pruning.
Do you farm organically/use bio-pest control to manage the vines?
We are not certified organic, but we follow organic practices. We plant the mid-rows, and we have native vegetation that feeds the insects. We run sheep that graze the land, and we keep a flock of guinea fowl. We use bio-dynamic methods that look after the soil and the environment.
When we first took over the farm, we removed a lot of plants that were not native. It’s not that hard to look after the environment. Why spend a lot of money on fuel and chemicals when nature can do it for you.
How long does your vintage usually go for?
Our vintage usually goes from February to May every year. We start with the white wine grapes in February/early March, and then we move onto the red wine grapes through April/May.
Do you have a favourite wine that you produce?
Our chardonnay is exceptional. We do both a French oaked and an unwooded style, as Claire preferred one style and I preferred the other. We like to produce wines that we like personally. Everything about us is genuine and real.
What are some of the challenges you and your sister encounter throughout the grape growing/winemaking process?
The climate is our biggest threat. We fear frosts every year, as they can cause a lot of devastating destruction. We can lose an entire crop in one frost. Extremes in the weather are also really challenging for us. One November, during the flowering time, we were hit with a heatwave. That cost us more than ½ of that crop.
Labour is another challenge we are constantly faced with. It’s really hard to find good people who want to stay in the country. Now with Covid and the Australian borders being shut, labour has become even more challenging. During this harvest I spent a lot more time than usual on a tractor because we couldn’t get the workers.
Being two working Mum’s is also challenging. It’s not living the dream running a vineyard with kids. It’s hard work.
Since China has slammed a tariff of up to 212% on Australian wine imports, has this impacted your business? And if yes, what is the impact it has had?
Yes, we have been greatly impacted.
We invested a lot of time and money to establish a presence to market our wines in China. We hired a translator to convert our information into mandarin. We spent two years building a presence in the Chinese market, and this included travelling to China. When China imposed exorbitant tariffs on Australian wines it has made it impossible to sell our wines in China which is disappointing on both sides of the equation.
Because of the tariffs imposed by China, our whole operation has been impacted. We sell 90-95% of the grapes we grow to other wine companies, and this vintage, anything that wasn’t under contract, was at risk of being left on the vines. Our reality was that wineries were taking fewer grapes and for less money.
Many consumers of wine might not know about the holding of payments from wineries and buyers; meaning that you don’t receive the money for your grapes until months later. Can you explain that to us, and do you think this model is broken?
Each year we mostly receive 1/3 payment 30 days after delivery, 1/3 end of June and the last 1/3 end of September. Because the grapes only produce one crop a year, there are six, maybe seven months before we see any money. It’s not a model that works very well.
Thankfully, some of the wineries we deal with do it differently. One large wine company now pays the last 1/3 in July. It’s good that they are advancing and changing with the times.
We must be careful who we deal with, as there is always the worry of not being paid at all.
You’ve lived quite the life, and it would probably make an epic Netflix series or movie. Can you tell us a bit about that?
My start in life was very normal. I grew up in Bordertown. After completing secondary school, I studied technology and then pursued a career in it. I got married, and my husband and I moved to New York.
My husband was working for a fortune 500 company as the head of sales, and this allowed me, the country girl from South Australia, to have ‘the life’ that many would have envied. I’m talking Ferraris in the driveway, nannies, and all the glitz and glamour. My kids went to school with Jordan Belford, the Wolf of Wall Street’s kids.
This was in the late 1990s during the height and then crash of the “dot.com” boom. Just before the crash happened, an enormous bonus was paid to three people (not my husband) which meant questions started to be asked, and the company was investigated by the SEC for accounting irregularities. He was not the level they wanted but the board of directors were very, very powerful people so he became “collateral damage” in the SEC’s hunt for heads.
At the time, my husband and I were completely naïve of how the US justice system worked. After hefty investigations and racking up legal fees beyond belief, my husband was sentenced to seven years in prison. He had to actually then wait six months for a place. Because he was a New Zealander, he went to one of the harsher prisons in the US, double 20-foot razor wire fence with a high gang population where prisoners are sent to serve their time before they are deported. During this time I met and made friends with people from all walks of life.
What does an Aussie mum living in New York with four kids under six and a husband sentenced to prison do at a time like this? She returns home to the safety of Australia to be supported by her family.
Thankfully, when I started having children, I had also purchased a vineyard with my sister, Lanacoona Estate in Wrattonbully. During the time of my husband’s sentencing the US Government took all our assets etc. At this time the vineyard wasn’t worth a lot because of the plummet in the industry so that was the only thing they let me keep. So after returning to Australia with no money and four little kids, e (my sister, mum, dad and myself) got to work. We started with 40 Ha of vineyard and expanded to 60 Ha.
It has been a labour of love and a lot of hard work. We were frosted out during our first season,2006/07, and we lost the whole crop.
In 2010, my husband was released from prison after an appeal. He ended up serving four of the seven years (2006-2010.) He came back to Australia, but we realised that we were not reading from the same book anymore, and we decided to part ways, and he moved to Queensland. We are still a team, and we both share in doing what’s best for our kids.
Looking back, I’m grateful for the life my kids and I have had on our vineyard. I now have four very compassionate grounded kids, who could be very different people to who they are, had we have stayed living the life we had in New York.
My entire family, mum, dad, and siblings are back in South Australia, and our family just works together.
Being two awesome women in business, can you tell us what some of your struggles have been, if any, being in the wine and business industry?
The challenge that stands out to me is when women in the industry decide to have children. Simply, the game is not kid-friendly. There are things like frosts to deal with (and this is always in the middle of the night), and wine tastings are always at night and weekends. But being sisters with similar priorities, we have shared the load, and together we have made it all possible.
Did covid impact your business? If yes, how?
Absolutely! The ability to sell wine. Before covid, we conducted face-to-face sales, lots of events. We have had to learn how to navigate e-commerce and get out there through social media. It’s very much a work in progress.
For anyone reading this who is considering purchasing a vineyard, do you have any advice that you’d be happy to share?
Be prepared to work really hard. You have to wear many hats, and you have to love it. You need to be prepared to always be a student, with an open mind that is open to change.
You must be prepared to wear a marketing hat, otherwise, you will fail. Claire and I have to show up to wine tasting events as the people buying the wine want to talk to the people who produce it. It’s easier to grow the wine than it is to sell it. There is no sitting at home gazing at the vineyard; it’s all hard work.
Why should we choose a wine crafted by Eight at the Gate?
Our vineyard has been built on the sharing of knowledge and skills. Claire is a qualified viticulturist who studied viticulture and oenology (science of making wines) at Roseworthy. And I brought the years of experience and knowledge gained in the corporate world. Our wines are perfected by our winemaker, Peter Douglas.
Claire and I work with Peter to make a beautifully blended wine. Our overall goal is to create wines that we are proud of and ready for our consumers to enjoy.
If you’d like to stock your home cellar or restaurant with some of these exquisite wines visit https://eightatthegate.com.au/