Posts by bradley hickey

After a 10 hour night bus ride from Doc Let to Hoi An, I was in no mood to be hassled. I found my hotel, the perfectly situated Hoang Trinh, and collapsed for a beautiful 3 hour nap. It’s good to suffer, it makes the simpler creature comforts more enjoyable. Hoi An is a beautiful…

After saying goodbye to the cool pine forests of Dalat, and yet another new friend, I was ready to enjoy a few peaceful days somewhere remote along Vietnam’s extensive coastline. I’d heard tales of beautiful, isolated beach retreats, and after a few days of hectic Saigon, and a cold hailstorm in the Central Highlands around…

One step into Ho Chi Minh City and you realize that it’s nuts. Motorbikes are everywhere, a howling fleet of girls with bandanas driving together in giant schools along the beat up roads. Observe with awe as they swerve in unison, riding double, triple, or loaded up with absurd cargo like a refrigerator or a…

Vietnam is a country that’s newly wide open to the West. It’s intensely green and wherever possible, and I mean wherever, it is festooned with rice paddies. These people can farm with the best of them, along the mountains they coax corn out of the rocky ground and work the vertical slopes like acrobats. Occasionally…

Currently, I’m sitting in a garden in Hoi An, Vietnam. The parched vintage in Oz is over and the dampness in the air here is palpable and pleasant. The weather is sunny and humid. There is a flute being played in the pagoda adjacent to my garden. Vietnam has one wine region in Dalat. The…

I have moved from the commercial winery, Belvidere, to the small scale winemaking facility at Clarendon called the Woolshed. The difference between the two couldn’t be more striking. Belvidere is an industrial plant and the Woolshed is, well, a former woolshed. Of course it’s been rebuilt, but it still is no more than a big…

I’m winding down in Australia. The vintage will be coming to a close in a few weeks, at least for the growers and viticulturists. The winemakers have much to do still, as they consider how to divide up the many different parcels of grapes resting in tanks or barrels. In 10 days I’m off to…

I have finally begun to make wine. Well, not exactly, but I am doing barrel work. This includes all things related to oak barrels: washing, coding, filling, stacking, and smelling. Smelling is important. Lisa W., R Wines winemaker, told me that last year they had some 60 barrels contaminated with tainted wood before it was…

I was driving from the Barossa this morning, and found myself in some thick fog. I pulled over on Mengler’s Hill to observe the damp cloud, to feel it on my skin, and got out of my little red Getz. So often the air here has been hot and dry, but today it was like…

This is the time of my life. I can feel it like one feels the approach of the end of a love affair. The telling moments are impossible to ignore, but they are absolutely true and unstoppable as they reveal themselves. Where all this travel and work is leading me to is anybody’s guess. And…

I’ve been able to watch the progression of this vintage in South Australia from the early stages. Meeting all the different characters who contribute to the final product has illustrated how much work goes into producing one bottle of fine table wine. Certainly, the physical labor in the production loop is one of the most…

The landlocked Barossa Valley is a deeply rooted agricultural region still strongly, and strangely, influenced by their German and English heritage. It’s been odd speaking German with the locals here and eating phenomenal bratwurst, but in many ways it’s refreshing to see an area remain so true to its past. Compared to the fresh and…

I went North to the Barossa this weekend, and barely made it back alive. There’s something dangerous in the air up there that pours lots of good red wine down my gullet. I think it has a name, this evil force, they call it: Travis O’Callaghan. Travis is a great guy, don’t get me wrong,…

Meltdown is upon us. As I stated earlier, this is turning out to be one of the most extraordinary years in Aussie viticultural history, and the vineyards are finally kaputt, calling it a day, and falling apart. The R winemaking team has been walking through all of the vineyards, over 150 of them, monitoring the…

It comes down to this: it’s the final three weeks of harvest before the premium reds finish their final stretch of developing full flavor profiles and are put to the press. It’s been the worst year of drought in Australia since 1982 (looking at 100f plus this weekend), and the growers can feel the pain…

The grapes are coming into Belvedere, the large commercial winery that R Wines calls home, by the truckload. Capable of handling 20,000 tons of fruit, Belvedere is a monster, but still small next to Wolf Blass’s 250,000 ton facility down the road. We will be crushing about 5,000 tons of fruit, merely a drop in…