By Lauren Henry

When stepping inside Best’s Wines cellar door at Great Western, it certainly feels like history is dripping from the walls.

While the winery this week celebrates 50 years of its cellar door, the building is no doubt reminiscent of an era much older than the 1970s.

And that’s partly because it is.

Originally Henry Best’s old horse stables from the 1870s, the cellar door was meticulously relocated, plank by plank, to its current location at the front of the winery.

At the time of opening, only a handful of wineries existed in Victoria, and very few were familiar with the cellar door concept.

But visitation was increasing to Best’s and the owners, the Thomson family, wanted a place to share their wines and sell directly to the public.

The stables fitted the brief, and were built to complement the historic underground cellars, dug by hand in the 1870s.

Managing director Ben Thomson remembers the stables in their original form – they were located near a peppercorn tree where his father Viv Thomson built a treehouse for him and his brother Hamish.

He recalls creating some mischief during the relocation project.

Each plank of the stables was numbered and taken apart piece by piece for careful reconstruction.

“They put 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and us little buggers, as kids we went around and changed all the numbers so nothing would fit,” he said.

The 158-year-old winery is steeped in history, and the Thomson family has valued that since taking ownership – ensuring items such as Henry Best’s diary, tools and photographs were kept, restored if needed and put on display for the public to see.

Wandering through the cellar door, a highlight is seeing those historical items being treasured.

Mr Thomson said the 50-year milestone further cemented the longevity of the Best’s brand.

“People walk through the door and are immediately taken by the history and the story,” he said.

“Many have heard about the cellar door, but until you’ve visited, it’s hard to visualise how special this place is.

“It’s not shiny but oozes character, and the people who work here take great pride in sharing our stories with customers.”

Similar to how the cellar door opened 50 years ago, without ceremonial grandeur, the Thomson family hosted an intimate celebration with its 20 staff to mark the 50-year milestone.

Since its opening on August 26, 1974, Best’s cellar door continues to welcome visitors seven days a week, offering wine tastings, guided underground cellar tours, and special tastings, all steeped in rich history.

The wines

The vines at the winery date back to 1868, playing a vital role in the Thomson’s wines.

In fact, Mr Thomson said some of the oldest vines in the world were at Best’s.

“We think we’ve probably got the oldest Pinot Meunier in the world, the oldest Pinot Noir in the world, and probably the oldest Dolcetto in the world, because we’ve never had Phylloxera here,” he said.

“The Australian wine industry is not that old. And to be able to have some of the oldest varieties in the world here is pretty important.”

Phylloxera attacks the roots of vines and spread through Europe and America in the mid 19th century, destroying just under half of all vineyards in France within a few decades.

“The more I think about it, the nursery block out the front – and that’s not all the varieties – we’ve got varieties like grec rose, gamay, piccolo, all these, they could be the oldest known variety in Australia, and we’ve still got seven that are unknown,” he said.

“They’ve been DNA tested a number of years ago and they don’t know what they are.

“I would like to try and get a grant through the government or the historical society or something like that to do a proper replanting of it, out of our other vineyard where it’s out of the frost, it’s going to be well preserved, with plenty of water, and just keep the heritage of these original vines.”

Best’s direct to consumer manager Nicole Thomson, Ben’s wife, said the winery would also like to have some of the historic vines DNA tested again.

“Science has developed a lot since they were done so perhaps there is some new scientific way of identifying those ones,” she said.

The Thomsons agreed their older vines made for a more unique type of produce, describing older vines as having ‘their own personality’.

“It’s a bit like people. As you get older you get more character and tell more stories,” Mr Thomson said.

“This is the way I describe it – young vines are still a bit dumb and thick and know it all. They think they’re spruicking this and that and then they’re knackered.

“But you get your old vines and they’ve just learnt to survive. They get older and you really can’t influence their flavours much when they’re 120, 140 ... you can’t really do much to them because their roots are down that far and they’ve had 150 haircuts.”

The industry

Mr Thomson said times were currently tough in much of the wine industry but he remained optimistic.

“For some strange reason, I feel quite positive about the future,” he said.

“I don’t know why – I’ve got no crystal ball – but I think if you keep trying hard and try new stuff ... we’ve just made two white wines out of Shiraz.

“It’s something different. It was our first year last year, this year we’re making a lot more of it because it seems to have worked.”

Mrs Thomson said a new variety they had introduced was the Blanc de Noir Cuvée. 

“I describe it as like a Prosecco apple cider,” he said.

“We weren’t trying to make a French style, we weren’t trying to make a Australian white bubbles, we weren’t trying to make a prosecco.

“We were trying to make something that’s really unique to us that’s made from a hundred per cent Shiraz grapes, but it’s just white.

“And it appealed to even the top people who love wine because it’s just refreshing.

“So we made four times as much this year, so it will go out further abroad, whereas we just kept it to cellar door.”

A lack of rain this year is impacting vineyards, requiring winery owners to pay for water.

Another challenge is the way life has changed since the COVID pandemic.

“There’s a lot of five-star restaurants closing down. There’s a lot of places who are reducing their hours and also now putting a surcharge on weekends,” Mrs Thomson said.

“People who would normally go out and maybe have two bottles of wine or so, they would probably just go out once a week instead of three times a week, and they’d only buy the one bottle of wine.”

The Thomsons said another challenge was marketing the region as a wine destination.

“There’s a lot of people in Melbourne who’ve never come out of Melbourne,” Mrs Thomson said.

“They’ve never come to the Grampians, they go the other side. 

“Grampians Tourism, working with the government and Visit Victoria in the last five years, the visitation here has grown because they’re really pushing the Grampians and to go wine tasting.”

The Thomsons said they would like to see more Victorians, including the State Government, local governments and businesses, supporting Victorian wineries.

“We should be going to our councillors and saying when you’ve got people coming, you should be buying local wines from your region and from Victoria, for events and gifts,” Mrs Thomson said.

“The same with Parliament – if the State Government is having a meeting or stocking its bar or hosting an event, they shouldn’t have any South Australian wine. It should be all Victorian.”

The entire August 27, 2024 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire August, 27, 2024 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!