From science to award-winning winemaking

While we all enjoy sipping a glass of our favourite wine or trying out a new one or two, there are fascinating stories of passionate vignerons who make them – striving to give wine lovers the best experience they can. For Beechworth winemaker Adrian Rodda, it was the ‘best of the best’ when judges for this year’s Premier’s awards selected his 2023 A. Rodda Baxendale Chardonnay for the prized Premier's Trophy. An initiative of the Victorian Wine Show and supported by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, the award was decided by a panel of experts following a taste-off between the winning wines from each of last year’s twelve regional wine shows across the state. Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan, with her own tasting under wine show conditions, had agreed with the experts selecting the 2023 A. Rodda Chardonnay as her top wine choice. It’s been an interesting winemaking journey for Adrian, as he recalls time working at a wine store where he homed in on a valuable wine education while studying a science degree at university. “I probably enjoyed the wine education sometimes more than my degree I was undertaking,” he said. Thinking there was more to life than being a highly trained person working in a laboratory, Adrian decided to travel overseas before embarking on a career. “I returned and worked at the wine store when I came back, and a winemaker who came in suggested I do a vintage to see if I liked it,” the award-winner said. Adrian’s first vintage in 1998 was in a little winery in Victoria’s Macedon region and he signed up to study wine science at Charles Sturt University by correspondence. A move to the Yarra Valley followed soon after where he spent a decade working at Oak Ridge Winery, before heading to Beechworth with his wife Christie 15 years ago. An opportunity led to working with another award-winning and well-known vigneron Mark Walpole, who had taken out a lease of Smith’s Vineyard – one of the oldest in the region planted with chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot in 1978. Adrian, with a love of working with chardonnay grapes and besides Smiths Vineyards, he also sources them both from the Yarra and King Valleys with the latter an upper wetland area known for its cool climate and elevation. “I’ve been making two chardonnays from different regions alongside each other in the Smiths winery,” he said. The winemaker has seven chardonnay vintages notched up since 2017 from the Baxendale Vineyard in the King Valley, except for 2020 when bushfires hit, winning the Premier’s award with the 2023 vintage. “Chardonnay is a great variety that's really malleable and responds well with what you do to it,” Adrian said. “It can grow in lots of different places, and where it grows with the climate and soil impacts on how it tastes as well. “It means you can have your own thumbprint on the style of wine that you like to make that’s different to other winemakers.” Although viticulturist Jimmy Baxendale sold his vineyard, Adrian still sources grapes from there. “I'm up there regularly, take samples, test, taste, and work out when we want to hand pick, and once done we drive back to Beechworth with the pressed grapes and start the wine making process," he said. “Once fermentation has taken place the wine stays in barrels for 12 months and then we start the next vintage. “It’s about a 15-month process from picking grapes to the bottle for the three chardonnays I make and release about three months later. “Beechworth and surrounds are special for growing chardonnay, but we are quite different with an elevation ranging from 300 to 800 metres above sea level having a big impact compared to the King Valley’s wetlands area of up to 1000 metres. “The soils are quite different and significant as well in the growing of grapes. “As small producers, we’re connected to the soil, the map and site elevation spending a lot of time out there and we talk about growing wine not grapes, as what we do is all done for the purpose of when it gets into the bottle. “Wine should be delicious and not a challenge for people to drink.” Adrian said placing wines in regional shows benchmarks them against each other benefiting the industry. “It was really gratifying to know the wine appealed to both technical people and wine lovers in general," he said. “Winning also brings more exposure to Victoria’s North East and it’s nice to lead the charge a little bit to make people aware.”

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