Thread: And you thought Winemaking was Safe

Tragic news from the Hunter Valley in Australia. Trevor Drayton, the owner of Draytons Winery, has died in an ethanol fireball that also destroyed his winery. One other person is dead, one severely injured.

I always liked Trevors earthy, old style Reds in particular. Rip Trevor . his father, Len (a Hunter legend) died in a plane crash in 1994.

"Blast kills wine 'icon'

Hunter Valley wine "icon", Trevor Drayton,was one of two men killed in a huge explosion today.
The bodies of Mr Drayton and another man were found near the cellar door area of Drayton's Family Wines in Oakey Creek Road, Pokolbin after the explosion at 8.15am.
A 27-year-old man suffered severe burns to 80 per cent of his body and was flown to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital.
It is believed workmen were using welding equipment when ethanol, made of brandy spirit, ignited and exploded, destroying the winery.

Fire as high as the trees
"I went straight down - there was a fire as high as the trees," he said. "It looked like a gas pipe had erupted.
"We think it might have been ethanol but we don't know. There was a liquid that was running down the road and lighting up the gutters.
"The front of the winery section has collapsed ... a guy nearby had skin melting off him ... he was in intense pain ... his face was half melted and his arm was melted.
"The guy who was burnt was saying we couldn't find Trevor - that he was standing next to him ...''
Rural Fire Service Superintendent Jason McKellar said two bodies were found in the winery's cellar door area.
Witnesses told Fairfax Radio Network that the roof had been blown off the plant and that the walls collapsed in the explosion."



Full article- Blast kills wine 'icon' - National - smh.com.au

wine amateurs, wouldn't have happened if wine was still made in France,

still a tragedy,

^ Nonsense, the family had been making wine since the late 1800's. They are one of the Hunter Valleys pioneering families actually.

Someone screwed up though. Brandy spirit (ethanol) is volatile stuff, used in Fortified wine production.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

wine amateurs, wouldn't have happened if wine was still made in France,

still a tragedy,

People want good wine not french wine.

But people also want wine that is not fortified, unless you are a wino and drink that cheap shit,, No way I will drink fortified wine. Cheap shit that will really fuck up your brain.

Do you look at the label and see how much bang for the buck you are getting??
Good wine does not run by content but by taste,, if you want high alc. content then get some Mogan David 20/20, nothin like a little Mad Dog 20/20, drive ya outta your mind.

Originally Posted by blackgang

No way I will drink fortified wine.

You won't drink normal wine, either, so that's not really much of a statement.

To True, now, but before when I was a normal drunk I woukdn't drink fortified, but then I only drank fortified because I bought for the pop not the taste, wine is spendy if it is 3% or 6% up to about 12%, then it gets cheaper and up to 22%, but thats the shit that winos drink,,real popskull with added alkie and liquid sulphur,, makes it go fast..

Port wine, muscat, decent sherries are some fine drinks. As is brandy.

There are cheap wines, fortifieds and spirits of course.

But you can't really compare a good vintage port with some stuff a wino drinks out of a flagon.

popskull

I'm not a wine guy. Just found the term funny as feck.

Vigneron stuck to Hunter's traditions


TREVOR Drayton was one of those winemakers - and Drayton's Family Wines one of those cellar doors - that visitors to the modern, glitzy Hunter Valley could easily overlook.

A fifth-generation vigneron, descended from one of the region's pioneer settlers, Drayton never chased publicity. The Draytons' simple cellar door also reflected a quieter time in the Hunter's history: it was just a place to buy good, traditional wines; it didn't have (or need) a glamorous restaurant or adjoining golf course or any of the other trappings of the modern wine-tourist destination. Drayton had much to be proud of. He was dux of the Roseworthy winemaking course in 1976, and the 1985 vintage of his Joseph Shiraz won the trophy for the Best Red at the 1995 Royal Melbourne Wine Show.
He was also twice past president of the Hunter Valley Vineyards Association, and sat on the board of both the Winemakers Federation of Australia and the NSW Wine Industry Association.
Usher Tinkler, winemaker at the nearby Poole's Rock Wines, grew up on the vineyard next to the Draytons', and remembers Drayton as a generous and supportive neighbour.
"He had a lot to do with our family when we started our own wine label," Tinkler said. "Trevor helped out with bottling and putting wine blends together. He was amazingly smart, but ... didn't like the limelight, just got on with winemaking."
The wines Drayton made were resolutely traditional: fine, quiet semillons and savoury, earthy shirazes that need many years in the bottle, stashed away in some cool, cobwebby place, to reveal their deep complexity.
During the 80s and 90s, many in the wine industry saw these traditional styles as old-fashioned.
But a new generation of people such as Tinkler - named as The Wine Society's 2007 Young Winemaker of the Year - revere them as Hunter classics, and view them as inspiration and benchmarks for their own wines.
Max Allen is a wine writer for The Weekend Australian Magazine

Vigneron stuck to Hunter's traditions | The Australian

Originally Posted by sabang

Port wine, muscat,

Gallo makes a fine White Port, when mixed with a little lemon juice is the toast of 2nd street., Muscatel also cuts a wide swath.

Originally Posted by sabang

There are cheap wines, fortifieds and spirits of course

That includes everything that Gallo makes.

Originally Posted by sabang

But you can't really compare a good vintage port with some stuff a wino drinks out of a flagon.

Don't know what a flagon is, be we did drink it while hid in a brown paper bag.

I spent a week touring the wineries in the Hunter Valley and staying in some wonderful Bed & Breakfasts. I think we visited that winery. I was a little surprised at how pricey some of the Hunter Valley wines were, but enjoyed them nonetheless.

The Hunter, whilst it definitely produces some fine wines CT, also benefits from it's location- being quite close to Sydney with it's affluent residents, and huge tourist market. There is also Newcastle nearby, a city in it's own right, and of course it is scenic. As such, the growth has been in 'wine tourism' rather than outright wine production- in fact, last time I looked, the tonnage of Hunter grown grapes was diminishing.

Only a very small percentage of Australia's grapes are actually grown in the Hunter, for several reasons- land is expensive, so cheaper to grow elsewhere, and to be honest, compared to other winegrowing regions of Australia, the Terroire of the Hunter probably only achieves excellence in two styles of wine- the semillon grape, for which it is probably the best in Oz- and maybe the world for a dry semillon, and a distinctively flavoured, earthy shiraz- often described locally as a 'burnt rubber' flavour.

Wine tourism means fine dining, often joined to a winery, nice 'country' accomodation and golf courses. In reality, most wines you pay for at the cellar door in a Hunter wine tasting you can actually buy cheaper at one of the big wine retailers around the country. They have no need to discount. Furthermore, only a minority of the wines you buy cellar door will be from pure Hunter fruit- and these mainly from the boutique wineries such as Draytons.

^Yes, they have some wonderful Shiraz wines, those were also some of the most expensive. The Semillon/Chardonnays were not that great IMO, but still enjoyable. But the upscale producers don't "tea bag" the wines with oak chips to get the buttery taste, the result is a cleaner more natural taste. All in all, I thought the selection of various wines was quite lacking in the Hunter. I suppose that has to do with available grape varieties, as you say, and the soil composition etc., as you mentioned.

^ I reckon you'd have to search far and wide to find a true Hunter semillon/chardonnay. It can be an OK blend, but a pure Hunter semillon is much better. Much better chardonnay fruit comes from Mudgee, and several other regions, than the Hunter- and thats where your blended wines will source their chardonnay.

I'm a bit of a stickler, but I reckon each wine can do well on it's own- why blend? The exception being cheaper, bulk 'quaffing' wines, made for consistency, budget and easy drinking rather than varietal excellence. In reality, this is most of the market though.

Originally Posted by chinthee

Yes, they have some wonderful Shiraz wines, those were also some of the most expensive.

Quite right- I was a big fan of Aussie shiraz when, believe it or not, they were unfashionable, and cheap. Those were the days - but I said even then that the rest of the world would catch on eventually, which they did with a vengeance.

Theres little of outstanding value now, comparitively speaking, but I'd say grenache varietals and good blends (especially those grown on old, gnarled Barossa vines) are a pretty good bet.