By James Atkinson
Brown Brothers is experimenting with new wine varieties that haven't even been named yet, the winemaker revealed at an exclusive gathering in its 'kindergarten' winery at Milawa, Victoria.
Brown Brothers currently has 45 different wine varieties on the market, and should soon be able to add more to this portfolio, PR manager Katherine Brown told TheShout.
"These new varieties don't even have names yet, they're really just letters and numbers which came through on the cuttings when we got them," she said.
"We've got a few we're working with, but there's two that we've actually harvested and produced some wine from in the last vintage."
The revelation came as Brown and family hosted an intimate dinner in the 'Kindergarten' for the next generation of Australia's First Families of Wine (AFFW). [continued below]
Dinner in Brown Brothers' Kindergarten winery
Food was matched to Brown Brothers' Tarango and Cienna varieties, that were bred under the winemaker's ongoing research and development relationship with the CSIRO.
The 'next-genners' were told that the philosophy of the kindergarten, which was founded by former chairman and CEO John Graham Brown in 1989, is simple: "If the winemakers don't stuff something up once and put it down the drain, they're not trying hard enough."
Katherine Brown added: "Because we have access to so many diverse climates within our family-owned vineyards, five of them in Victoria and now three sites down in Tasmania, we have the ability to be able to experiment with these varieties."
"Also, being a family-owned business, I think we have more flexibility to work on those projects as well, because in the end not everything has to make money. We're always looking for the long-term," she said.
Brown Brothers executive director Ross Brown recently predicted that Vermentino could have an important future role in Australia, given the changing climate and consumer palates.