By Deborah Jackson, editor National Liquor News
The Hunter Valley's Margan family is celebrating 20 years of winemaking this May, with a series of events and a new range of wines to mark the milestone.
The Margan's will celebrate the anniversary with a series of lunches and dinners at the Margan Cellar Door and Restaurant, which has also reached a decade of business this year, along with the first release of a new range of pioneering wines.
The Margan story began two decades ago when young Tyrrell’s winemaker Andrew Margan decided to have a go himself and make wine under his own name. His parents had a vineyard in the Hunter Valley in the 1970s so there was already wine in his DNA. Armed with a purchase order from a wine club he was able to fund the costs for the first wines. After that he and wife Lisa, were on their own.
Today, Andrew Margan is chief winemaker and viticulturist, while Lisa is executive chef, develops the ‘estate grown’ projects (lambs, bees, garden and smallgoods) and manages the Margan Restaurant and Cellar Door.
There is now a team of 30 staff across the business spanning winery sales, vineyard, cellar door, restaurant and admin.
The wines, restaurant and cellar door have picked up numerous awards, with Andrew Margan being named Viticulturist of the Year in 2015 and Lisa Margan being awarded Excellence in Food Tourism at the National Tourism Awards, also last year.
And now the next generation is also coming through, with the couple's eldest son Ollie just about to finish a double degree in Winemaking and Viticultural Science at the University of Adelaide. Daughter Alessa is studying Communications at UTS while working in wine and food PR and their other son James is studying Economics at Sydney University.
Today the Margan family owns 100 hectares of its own vineyards – both old, restored vines planted with the most famous Hunter Valley icon varieties, mostly from the original Lindeman’s and Saxonvale vineyards, and also the first plantings in the Hunter Valley of pioneering varieties including Barbera and Albarino.
Production has grown from the inaugural 3000 cases to around 30,000 cases a year with every wine wearing the Margan label grown on the Margan vineyards using a single vineyard approach to all of its production.
While the single vineyard White Label wines remain the signature range for Margan, Andrew is constantly on the lookout for exciting new varieties that work in the unique Hunter climate.
He pioneered Barbera in 1998, released a Shiraz Mourvedre in 2005 and this year will add to these with an Albarino and a Tempranillo Graciano Shiraz with the release of the Breaking Ground quartet of wines due for launch on 1 May. Both the Shiraz Mourvedre and the Tempranillo Graciano Shiraz picked up trophies at the Hunter Valley Wine Show 2015.
Over the next few months, a curated list of events will celebrate 20 years of Margan. For a full list of events, visit the Margan website.