Halliday Awards 2020

—

Exciting news!  Box Grove Vineyard has been named one of ten Dark Horse Wineries in the 2020 Halliday Companion. To qualify for this award, each winery has to have received a 5 star rating for the first time, and a history of at least four lesser ratings.

This is the venture of the Gough family and winemaker Sarah Gough, who battled hard until switching from traditional varieties to those of the Mediterranean. It was a success, and the business rated 4.5 stars year in, year out, trembling on the brink of 5 stars. Ned Goodwin was the taster this year and was very impressed with the broad range of wines.

I'm particularly happy to be recognised for the different varieties we’ve planted over the years — most notably the Portuguese, Italian and Southern French varieties which suit our granite soils and the slightly left-of-centre wines like our Primitivo, which uses a combination of fruit dried on racks in silos and vine ripened fruit.

But above all, it’s a great tribute to the hard work of my team in recent years — learning the personalities of these different varieties and coaxing out their best flavour and character with diligent care, then capturing these flavours in the bottle at the winery.

Some of this country's most notable small winemakers have also been dubbed Dark Horses — like Dalzotto (who introduced Prosecco to Australia), Goaty Hill from Tasmania, Battle of Bosworth and Hedonist wines from McLaren Vale and Plan B from Western Australia — so we're rubbing shoulders with some good company.

Of course, we’re also thrilled that so many of our wines were highly-rated by taster, Ned Goodwin. Most notably, our 2016 Shiraz Roussanne and 2017 Primitivo were awarded a 95 rating and our 2018 Vermentino and our 2018 Late Harvest Viognier, received a highly respectful 93. Two of our favourite summer wines were also strongly praised with our  2018 Prosecco and 2018 Primitivo Saignée scoring 90 and 91, respectively.

Exciting and happy times!