By Dongyun Kwon
The perfect climate of the Yarra Valley has enabled the success of getting the beautiful taste of Cabernet Sauvignon over the years, which eventually fascinated the judges in the 2024 Yarra Valley Wine Show.
Squitchy Lane was awarded the Dr Bailey Carrodus Memorial Perpetual Wine of Provenance Trophy for its Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2022, 2018 and 2014.
Squitchy Lane owner Mike Fitzpatrick said the Squitchy Lane team was chuffed with winning the trophy.
“It is a great honour to accept this trophy, which recognises our ability to produce outstanding Cabernet from our six hectares of vines, originally planted in 1982,” he said.
“It is also a tribute to the hard work of the winemaking team and in particular to the hard work of the vineyard manager, Steve Sadlier over many years.”
The Dr Bailey Carrodus Memorial Perpetual Wine of Provenance Trophy is a unique award as it is judged on three different vintages of the same label that must be spread over a minimum of eight vintages.
There must be a minimum three year spread between vintages.
The wines are judged for their consistency and excellence across the vintages, as well as the ability of the wine to age.
Squitchy Lane vineyard manager Steve Sadlier said the sunshine in the Cabernet season is one of the keys to producing good quality Cabernet Sauvignon.
“From the vineyard point of view, the site here receives enough sunshine and warmth to ripen it to full maturity on the vine,” he said.
“The Valley Floor, which is where we are, suits Cabernet generally a lot more compared to the Upper Yarra because we get that extra warmth.
“Cabernet likes warmth, particularly in the autumn period, when it ripens in March and April, it loves a lot of water and but sometimes the Upper Yarra gets too cool.”
Mr Fitzpatrick is a legend in Australian rules football who played for Carlton in the 70s and 80s winning two premierships.
The name Squitchy Lane came from a street in Oxford, UK, recalling where the owner had lived in the 70s for study, where he first began his foray into wine as well as started going out with his now wife Helen Sykes.
The history of Squitchy Lane started as the footy legend bought into the place for a weekender in 2000 although it took about five more years to launch his own brand.
“But it also had a contract for one of the small producers to take the grapes and bottle them up in a market brand,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.
“Unfortunately, he was unable to keep that going, so in the end we were left with a vineyard which we didn’t know much about what to do.
“But we had an interest and we set about trying to produce a brand and to put together a really excellent wine.”
Over 20 years of the consistent effort of producing wine that exhibits the characteristics of the vineyard site and the influence of the particular vintage has paid off at the Yarra Valley Wine Show awards night on Thursday 12 September.
