With four decades spent making wine in the Barossa, to say Kevin Glastonbury is an expert in the region is somewhat of an understatement.
Kevin Glastonbury is an old-school winemaker. He worked his way from laboratory assistant to his current role as senior red winemaker at Yalumba by dint of creative talent, sheer hard work, perseverance and a whisker of luck. In his words: “I kick myself every day that I have the good fortune to have such a distinguished collection of reds under my wing.”
In Glastonbury’s custody are Yalumba’s top reds – The Reserve, The Octavius and iconic cabernet sauvignon blend The Signature, along with other blends, such as the FDR1A and The Scribbler. When pushed, he sees the 2011 Yalumba The Tri-Centenary Grenache (a super-fine wine from a challenging vintage) as a career highlight.
And what a career. He started in the lab at Seppelt back in 1977, at a time when you expected a lifelong job and the hope of working your way through the ranks to a senior winemaking role. A man of great application and purpose, he set about doing just that, learning all the detail and logistics needed to deliver a quality wine from vat to barrel and into bottle.
However, the passing of Seppelt from family hands saw a more corporate outlook, with winemaking roles only offered to those with formal training. By the early 1990s, Glastonbury had made a few small batches of wine with some mates and was bitten by the bug, so when Grant Burge offered him a winemaking role in 1994, he seized the opportunity. His four-year stint with Grant Burge gave him both the experience and confidence to answer a job advertisement in late 1998 for a winemaker at Yalumba. To his surprise, he landed the job with his growing knowledge of the nuances of the Barossa a key to his appointment.
The rest is, as they say is… a work in progress. Glastonbury has spent the last 17 years happily refining his growing portfolio of traditional Yalumba reds, which includes larger volumes such as The Scribbler as well as tiny parcels from small plots of ancient vines. He sees himself very much part of the Yalumba team, employed by the great mentor Brian Walsh and now working under Louisa Rose, one of the industry’s most open-minded winemakers.
Now in his mid-50s, Glastonbury is increasingly taking a mentoring role with the younger members of the winemaking crew. This move takes him full circle. He cites his own mentors as James Godfrey, Philip John, Wendy Stuckey, Nigel Dolan and Simon Adams. All helped him progress from the technical to the artistic side of winemaking while gaining a solid grounding in the reality of making wine in a commercial environment.
Glastonbury loves Barossa shiraz with its countless facets, but grenache really inspires him. “Too often grenache is made in a big, ballsy style, but wonderful old vines, when cropped at low levels, can deliver elegant, balanced grenache with lots of spice, pepper, cedar and Turkish delight aromas,” he explains. “Grenache picked at moderate sugar levels with final alcohols of less than 14 per cent can produce wine with the vitality of pinot noir or nebbiolo.” Look out for his forthcoming 2015 Carriage Block Single Site Grenache. It’s a minuscule 60-case release, so be quick.
Oak is another of Glastonbury’s hobby-horses. He relishes the fact that Yalumba has its own on-site cooperage at Angaston. “Less is more,” he says, observing the diminishing use of new oak throughout the industry in recent years. At the same time he has seen the quality of seasoned oak staves that Yalumba imports from France, Hungary and America improve exponentially.
When asked about the future, Glastonbury alludes to more vinous goodies being added to the fine and rare collection. “It’s still hush hush,” he says.
Glastonbury is immensely proud of his role in refining The Signature, the legendary blend that dates back to 1962. He is mindful of the stroke of luck it is to be part of the Yalumba winemaking family and he feels that he can actively contribute for many years to come.