Inner City Winemakers

Owner/winemaker Rob Wilce has over 20 years' experience in the business, mainly spent with wine companies in the Hunter Valley. While his job was in marketing and sales, he has worked many vintages with different winemakers in the valley, learning the basic winemaking skills. He realised he simply didn't have the capital to establish a vineyard and winery, and so came up with the idea of a virtual winery, purchasing a small warehouse at Wickham, on the edge of Newcastle's CBD and harbour. The small warehouse was too small right from the word go, and is now ‘ridiculously small', but he spreads vintage intake by buying grapes from the Hunter Valley, Orange, Hilltops and New England, thus starting in January and finishing at the end of April. He says his winemaking can best be described as rustic, with Heath Robinson winemaking equipment, but it gets the job done. He has a wine club with just under 200 members, they do the wine marketing for him; and two part-time employees who join him during vintage. -JAMES HALLIDAY