Winemaker-NSW

Jennifer Loicht

It’s an important time for Hunter Valley winemaker Scott Stephens. The initial quarter of each year is devoted to harvesting and fermentation. The first four months are crucial to making the next eight worthwhile, he says.
“If you don’t make good wine now, it makes it more difficult to bottle and sell,” says Stephens, who works at Tower Estate at Pokolbin.

What does a typical year hold for a winemaker?
The first four months are harvest time — starting with the Hunter Valley, where about 50 per cent of our grape supply comes from. Then as the Hunter winds down, our other regions — Clare Valley, Barossa Valley and Adelaide Hills — start to ripen up. Finally, in April, we finish off by picking Tasmanian pinot noir. The next eight months is when we get the wine ready for bottles — first the aromatic wines (reisling, semillon, verdelho and sauvignon blanc), then last year’s reds and this year’s chardonnays.

Best things about your job?
No two days, or years, are ever the same. Every year can throw up challenges to your vintage and you have to work with it.

Are long, boozy lunches a big part of the job?
Yes, they are very much a part of it. One of your good sales clerks, or a travelling winemaker, could come and see you, and you might go out to lunch for a couple of hours. But then, we also do long hours and work weekends. The coalmines pay more than the wine industry so you have to love it.

What’s your favourite drop?
I like French wines — they grow good grapes — as well as Hunter shiraz and semillon.

Where else have you worked?
I was at McWilliams, Mount Pleasant, and had a brief stint with De Bortoli, then started here in 2005. I’ve also worked as a cellarhand in the United States and France, learning how other winemakers do things.

Do the French do things differently?
Yes, they’re more focused on the fact good wine comes from the vineyard, whereas here we tend to focus on making good wine in the winery and keeping that fastidious.

How did you get into winemaking and why?
I wanted something that would combine my love of science with an agrarian pursuit — I’m a frustrated farmer. I did medical lab science and worked in pathology in rural NSW, where I was born and bred. Then I went to London to work — that’s when I started drinking a lot of wine. The romanticism of working in the vineyards and tending your vines got to me as well. I went back to uni [in Australia] and did wine science, and was lucky enough to get a job as a cellar hand in 1994.

How much time do you spend tending vines?
Ten per cent — I’d love to say more but we buy grapes from all over Australia so it’s hard. Also, I’ve got to make and sell the wine as well.

Hunter Semillon and Seafood runs from April 13-15. What is it and what’s your involvement?

It’s all very well to make a unique wine such as Hunter semillon but it’s another thing to sell it, so this event was established several years ago to get the wine out into the market-place. Semillon goes well with seafood because it’s so crisp.

Make sure to check out the program of semillon themed events throughout Hunter Valley Wine Country, over 150 Hunter semillons with local seafood in one location at Tyrrell’s Vineyard.