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Our web site
is always interested in news about developments in the South
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You can find out more about the South Burnett on the following web sites:
South Burnett Online
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Stuart Range Launches
Australia's First 2003 Wine
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 30th March 2003: Queensland Primary Industries Minister Henry
Palaszczuk was at Kingaroy's
Stuart Range Estates winery
on Saturday to officially launch the first wine from Australia's 2003 vintage:
April One, a verdelho-chardonnay blend developed by Stuart Range's
winemaker Ross Whiteford. A crowd of more than 50 heard that because
the South Burnett is able to take is harvest off the vines anywhere from
4 to 8 weeks earlier than the rest of the country, the region is also in
the able to release new vintage wines earlier than any other part of the
nation too. This is a unique geographic advantage that Stuart Range intend
to begin exploiting in the years ahead (and I'm sure our region's other
winemakers probably will as well). Whiteford's new April One is a delightfully
light white (13.5% alcohol) with pronounced tropical fruit and citrus flavours.
It's best served chilled and would be a superb accompaniment to any seafood
dish. Ross told attendees that he thinks another couple of months in the
bottle will only improve the product by helping to bring out more chardonnay
characteristics, but the new wine will be on sale at leading restaurants
and liquor outlets throughout south east Queensland from April 1st. It will
also appear on the catering division of Parliament House's wine list where
- I'm sure - it will find a very appreciative audience. Photo:
Henry Palaszczuk gives his seal of approval to April One.
| South
Burnett Wine Summary |
Release:
|
April
One (2003 Vintage) |
Winemaker:
|
Stuart
Range Estates Winery
67 William Street, Kingaroy |
Contact details:
|
Phone:
(07) 4162-3711
Web:
http://srewines.com.au
Email:
info@srewines.com.au |
GI: |
100%
South Burnett |
Volume:
|
750ml
(8 standard drinks) |
Grapes:
|
Verdelho
and Chardonnay blend |
Alcohol Content:
|
13.5% |
Preservatives:
|
Sulphur
dioxide |
Cork:
|
Ref
1A |
Price:
|
$13.00
single bottle ($145 per dozen)
|
|
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New! South Burnett
Wine and Food Day Bus Tours
-
 27th March 2003: Sunshine Coast residents who'd like to take
a flying one-day tour of the South Burnett are now able to thanks to an
innovative partnership between
Clovely Estates,
Barambah Ridge,
The Left Bank at Kilkivan
and the
Belle Villa Crayfish and Olive
Farm (also at Kilkivan). Selected Sunshine Coast and Gympie bus tour
operators are now offering a one-day "Taste The Magic Of The South
Burnett" package tour that takes in all four destinations and includes
winery tours, tastings, morning tea at Barambah Ridge, lunch at The Left
Bank and an afternoon looking over Belle Villa's innovative redclaw and
olive-growing operations. The tour is the brainchild of Clovely's cellar
door manager Craig Gillett. Pending its success, other tours will
be organised to the southern end of the South Burnett for Brisbane residents
in the foreseeable future. This will allow anyone who lives on the coast
to get to enjoy a fun day out in our region without having to worry about
having a designated driver aboard. If you live in Gympie or the Sunshine
Coast and want to take one of these tours (the first one came into the region
today), contact Bruce or Rae Hurley at The Left Bank on (07) 5484-1016
(or
email them) to find out
the contact details of your nearest participating bus company.
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And The Winners
Are...
-
 24th March 2003: On the weekend I had the pleasure of judging
seven of the South Burnett's finest chefs and cooks as they battled it out
for honours at the highly anticipated PCA Regional Culinary Competition.
The event has now become a drawcard of the Tarong Coal Wine and Food in the
Park Festival and this year's wok-off certainly didn't disappoint! A smorgasbord
of regional produce and wine was showcased in a number of creative and original
dishes, and the ultimate winners were:
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Best overall
dish - Steve Gudzinski (Chef) Bell Tower Restaurant
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Best wine
and food match - Steve Gudzinski (Chef) Bell Tower Restaurant
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Most creative
use of regional produce - Aaron Bell (Chef) Carrollee Hotel
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Most creative
use of peanuts - Elwyn Rackemann (Cook) Explorers Restaurant
As with last
year's event, there are no losers. All the 2003 entrants will eventually
have their recipes published on this web site and - I hoped - in a future
edition of Taste the Magic of the South Burnett cookbook, which was
also launched at this years competition (see story further below).
The cook-off's guest judges Alison Alexander (food consultant and
critic) and John McDonald (purveyor of Fine Foods) said they were
impressed with the skills and creativity of the contestants and the abundance
of unique regional produce. As a direct result of the competition, Steve
Gudzinski will now join Team South Burnett at the LifeStyle Channel Australian
Regional Culinary Competition to represent the South Burnett region in Adelaide
later this year. The addition of Mr Gudzinski to the team completes the culinary
quartet, because the prestigious national competition requires all teams
to be comprised of four professional chefs. Photo above:
Steve Gudzinski from the Bell Tower Restaurant and Juli Robertson
from cook-off sponsors PCA.
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New General Manager
For Barambah Ridge
-
 21st March 2003: Popular South Burnett wine industry identity
Janelle McLaren has been appointed General Manager of
Barambah Ridge. Janelle
- who's worked for the company since 1999 managing several of its cellar
doors and/or overseeing its marketing operations - has a long background
in the hospitality industry and said she was "excited" by the demanding new
role. "Barambah Ridge will crush more than 400 tonnes of Queensland grapes
for the 2003 vintage with estimated value of $1.8 million," she said. "We're
also in the midst of consolidating our operations as one of the largest wine
operations in the state, making wines under our own label and carrying out
contract wine making for other Queensland wine producers. So it's quite an
exciting time for me personally and for everyone involved with the company.
The amount of capital that's been invested in the industry here over the
past five years in things like developing best practice viticulture,
technologically advanced winery processes and the investment in quality oak
is obvious in the wines that are being produced now, and the Queensland wine
industry is really starting to boom because of that. I'm really proud to
be part of it all."
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Regional Cookbook
To Be Launched This Saturday
-
 18th March 2003:
The South Burnett's own regional cuisine cookbook will be officially launched
at the
Tarong Coal Wine & Food In
The Park Festival this coming Saturday 22nd March. The 32 page spiral
bound publication - which has been almost a year in the making - was released
from the printers yesterday. It looks absolutely gorgeous and would make
a wonderful addition to any serious foodie's library. After the launch the
cookbook will be widely available through all the region's Visitor Information
Centres and many other outlets as well as directly through this web
site (order fulfillment will be carried out by the Kingaroy Visitor Information
Centre). The cookbook features a wide range of regional recipes along with
suggested South Burnett wines to accompany each dish. It also has 12 bonus
postcards and a re-order form included, along with a copy of the region's
Wine and Food Trail map. The book has been put together by the wine
and food subcommittee of the South Burnett Tourism Association - who've really
done a tremendous job, I think - and has been supported by the DPI, the South
Burnett Local Government Association, the Fraser Coast South Burnett Tourism
Board, local tourism operators and the Regional Arts Development Fund. Copies
will retail for $15.95 and all profits will be used to assemble future
editions. Look for an online order form on this site next week after
the launch.
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New Winery Opens
At Goodger
-
 15th March 2003:
The South Burnett's wine industry is still relatively small compared to more
established regions like the Barossa and Hunter - but I'm pleased to report
that it's growing rapidly. Latest entrant?
Kingsley Grove near Goodger,
who'll be their first public appearance at the
Tarong Coal Wine & Food In
The Park Festival on Saturday 22nd March. Kingsley Grove is owned
by Michael and Patricia Berry and they put down their first
vines in 1998. Since then their vineyard has quietly expanded to 22 acres
and 8 varieties of grapes including Sangiovese and Chambourcin (which are
fairly new to the area). After a trial winemaking run at their ultra-modern
plant in 2001 they've just released five 2002 vintages to announce their
public debut: a chardonnay, a semillon, their Estate Cabernet Shiraz, a Hilltop
Shiraz and a cabernet sauvignon. Both Michael and Patricia picked up their
winemaking skills in Victoria and I'm sure many people will be keen to sample
their wares at this year's Festival. At present, Kingsley Grove
don't have a cellar door and don't sell at their
Stuart Valley Drive premises either. If you want to try and/or buy their
wines you'll need to either run into them at a wine tasting or order via
mail from their web site. However, this could change in the future depending
on how things develop.
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PCA's Regional Culinary
Cook-Off Building Up Steam
-
 12th March 2003: Last year the Department of Primary Industries
rolled out something extraordinary at the annual
Tarong Coal Wine & Food In
The Park Festival: a regional cuisine cooking competition that
attracted a raft of the region's best chefs. Hundreds of foodies packed out
the competition tent all day long to watch the action and the enormous success
of the cook-off was one of the big surprises of the 2002 Festival. The good
news is that this year it looks like it's going to be even better! The
Peanut Company of
Australia are the major sponsors of the 2003 cook-off and since the
theme of last year's event was "Cooking With A Skewer", the theme of this
year's will be "Cooking With Peanuts". The same judges will be putting
competitors through their paces and DPI (bless them) will be supplying a
lot of the essential infrastructure to make it all happen on the day. If
you really enjoy food, come along to Memorial Park on Saturday 22nd
March and watch the woks fly! Photo above: (l to r) DPI
Director-General Warren Hoey, Liesl Coggan from South Burnett Promotions
and John Day from Kingaroy DPI at the 2002 cook-off.
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How Do You Crack
A Bunya Nut?
-
 9th March 2003: On Australia Day I went to the Bunya Mountains
with my family to see Rex Parsons (see photo at right), the
chef of
Rosellas Restaurant. Rex
is Australia's leading culinary expert on Bunya nuts and has recently written
a fantastic cookbook dedicated to the bush food icon: Chef Rex Creating
with Bunya Nuts. I went to see Rex because I was looking for advice about
how I could use Bunya nuts when my team competes at the
LifeStyle Channel Regional Culinary
Competition in Adelaide later this year. Rex made some great suggestions
(eg: smoking meat using Bunya Nut shells) but also confided that he has a
surprising problem: apparently there's been no technological advancement
for breaking open the hard, fibrous outer shell of these nuts. And right
now this makes harvesting and production laborious and commercially unviable.
Only fifty years ago another indigenous nut was in a similar boat: the
Macadamia nut. But in 1954 engineers developed a mechanised system
for shelling Macadamias and the industry is now worth hundreds of
millions a year in export sales. And even though the Macadamia is now
grown internationally, Australia still produces one third of the world's
supply. On the way back to the picnic area where my family was enjoying some
snags off the barbie, two Bunya cones fell from the sky and exploded into
the ground only metres from my kids before rolling down a slope into our
picnic blankets. As the cones came to rest against our barbeque (and after
my heart started beating again!) I decided this must have been a sign from
God. So I'm issuing a challenge to any creative engineers out there: if you
can come up with an efficient process for shelling Bunya nuts you may just
spawn the next great Australian nut industry. Get
cracking!
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Region's Grape Harvest
"Extraordinary"
-
 6th March 2003: About two weeks ago I wrote that several local
winemakers had tipped me that this year's harvest looked like producing a
premium crop. Now
Stuart Range's new manager
Ross Whitford has added his voice to the consensus. "Ask any winemaker
when white grapes are due to picked and they'll tell you it should be February
for whites and mid-March for reds. But because of the drought conditions
in the South Burnett we harvested our first Chardonnay grapes in mid-January
this year and our Shiraz grapes in late January. This is unprecedented
in my 20 years winemaking experience." Ross attributes the early harvest
to three factors: warm weather in early Spring which brought the bud-burst
forward; dry conditions over the growing season which kept fungal threats
to a minimum; and dry conditions the previous year (ie 2002) which improved
bunch and berry size. Stuart Range will making full use of this year's crop
to redefine some of their lines. Their 2003 Chardonnay will be made in
two distinct wine styles: one getting the full wooded treatment,
the other being made for elegance. Their Shiraz will be a good coloured style
with understated oak and their Cabernet will be fruity and lower in
alcohol then current trends, with the aim being to produce good pungent aromatics
and light supple mouth tannins. The biggest winner will be their Cabernet
Shiraz Merlot blend - a speciality of the region. 2003's will be fuller bodied
with rich mouth-filling tannins and a little oak to help it along.
[PS: As a footnote, Stuart Range recently stopped specialling their
2001 Goodger Shiraz. Reason? It's worth way more than the price they
were charging. If you like Shiraz, I can recommend this particular blend
at any price]
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Bell Tower Spit Roast
Livens Up Sunday Night Dining
-
3rd March
2003: Last night (ie Sunday) I went to the first of the Bell Tower
Restaurant's new Sunday Night Spit Roasts at the Booie Range Distillery.
Chef Steve Gudzinski proposes to hold these nights between 4:30pm
and 7:00pm every second Sunday from now on - and personally, I think
he's on a winner! At $10.90 for adults and $5.90 for children
(soft drink and ice-cream included) this is a very affordable evening out
for the whole family or your favourite social group. And the
4.30pm start is a perfect opportunity to get the kids fed early so that Mum
and Dad can settle into a relaxing evening without getting their ankles bitten
off. The buffet consists of a fresh spit roast - on the evening I was there
it was a whole pig - accompanied by an assortment of salads, roast vegetables
and fresh bread rolls. The Bell Tower are also offering beer on the wood
(at $5.50 per pint) to add extra sparkle. And after the recent rain, the
views at the restaurant are a spectacular patchwork of greens and red soil
right now - the best I've seen since the Bell Tower opened in 2001. The next
spit roast evening will be on Sunday 16th March. However, if you're
thinking of trying it yourself I'd strongly recommend making a booking. 90
people turned up for the first night and tables will undoubtably be in
even greater demand as word gets around.
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