Listen to our conversation

Left click on the file name to listen, or right click on the file name to download the podcast.

What do you think of this podcast? Send us a comment

The Andrew Hood Podcast
Hood_conversation_part1.mp3 ( 24.8 mb   27:08 minutes)	In this part of our conversation, we start off hearing about how hard core bushwalking was in the 60's, touch base on the AFL and then finally start talking about wine. We follow Andrew's career from bug hunter at Kraft Foods to winemaker in Tasmania. Along the way we reminisce about 70's air travel, get into yeast and bottle line sanitation, find out about his Wellington label and finish with the gentle and graceful easing into semi-retirement at Frogmore Creek.
hood_conversation_part2.mp3 ( 23.9 mb   26:10 minutes)	Having covered Andrew's career we moved on to his role at Frogmore Creek and those personal questions. We started by asking what happened to Frogmore's organic status, we then wanted to know how the relationship between a winemaker and viticulturalist operates, we hear about the perils of frost and managed investment schemes, we find out that Andrew often tries to talk people out of planting a vineyard. We put it to Andrew that pinot smells of manure, we ask for a recommendation for a wine that can be cellared for 18 years. To finish we fire the personal questions at Andrew and unveil our newest question.

Andrew Hood - Winemaker.

The name Wellington has been applied to damn near everything - a mountain, a boot, a city and most importantly a wine. The man responsible for the last attachment, Andrew Hood, took time out from his busy semi-retired schedule for a chat.  We sat outside the Frogmore Creek winery in brilliant sunshine and to a chorus of traffic, industrial sounds and the odd bird call, and found out a lot more about this internationally renown winemaker. 

Andrew at Frogmore Creek

Being the consummate professionals we are we decided that self indulgence was the way to begin our conversation. Since the happy team at Winepunters HQ had recently walked the Overland Track and we knew Andrew had done the same in the 1960's we wanted to compare notes. Folks, you may not believe this but there was a time before Kathmandu clothing, Macpacs and space age fibres (I know, we couldn't believe it either! - Ed). People had to wear ex-army clothing and step in actual mud - no duckboards - oh the humanity!

Recovering from that shock we wanted to know how Andrew was faring since the Collingwood Football Club had been soundly beaten on the previous weekend by those silver tails the Carlton Football Club. It was our understanding that Andrew was a Collingwood supporter and Michelle, being more than a little fond of Carlton, was threatening to burst into the Carlton theme song at any moment. Somewhat disappointingly Andrew mentioned that in fact it was his late wife who was the real fan and that Andrew, like all sensible husbands, supported the Magpies to express his deep love and admiration for Mrs Hood. So there was no gloating opportunity to be had for the fair Michelle. Although fear not all you magpie supporters, Andrew's daughter has taken over the supporter duties so the Hood household still has a representative in the magpie army. 

Having dealt with the important matters we got down to the job of finding out how Andrew ended up making award winning wine. Strangely the journey started at Kraft foods with Andrew being responsible for ensuring that no nasty bugs made their way into traditional Aussie foods.  We had to find out what was his favourite bug that he found as he pulled apart machinery at 3 am. Salmonella and e-coli was the reply.  Andrew said that, in hindsight, the attention to cleanliness and detail required by that job put him in good stead for his eventual move into the wine industry. 

There is only so much time you can spend hunting bugs and so it was that Andrew got bored and started looking for other opportunities. Having done a wine appreciation course in Melbourne and achieving "amateur wine consumer" status he was overjoyed to land a job as a microbiologist at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide.  

Andrew and 'his' barrels

During this time, Andrew was involved in researching and preparing dry yeast cultures for the wine industry. Normally yeast doesn't rate as much of a discussion topic, which to our mind is a shame - it's a lot more interesting than you think. The first question about yeast led to a 5 minute discussion covering fascinating issues like how you develop yeast strains and what's the seed saving equivalent in the world of yeast (no seriously, it was interesting - Ed).  

If that wasn't enough we got on to wine bottles. While at the wine institute Andrew "got heavily involved in bottling line sanitation" (stay with us folks - Ed). Andrew pointed out that due to yeast contamination in the wine bottles people were getting cloudy wine that also developed gas. This may not seem much of an issue but it resulted in some cask wine exploding in retail outlets!  Having experienced some catastrophic failures as ginger beer brewers we could sympathise.

The next step for Andrew was to move to the Riverina CAE (which later became the Charles Sturt University) at Wagga as a lecturer in wine science. The Riverina CAE course had been developed in order to give the only other recognised wine course at Roseworthy "a bit of a shot in the arm through competition". " I think nobody expected the Wagga course to survive ... but it did ... and it still survives". This correspondence wine course attracted working winemakers who "knew far more than the lecturing staff so it was a learning experience on both sides."

Andrew tests a red.

Andrew spent 12 years at the Riverina but in the end, although he continued to enjoy the teaching and students, the 'politics' and 'finances' got to him and he decided to become a winemaker in his own right. In 1990 he returned to Tasmania and picked up 6 clients as a result of his one and only letter writing campaign. His first vintage (16 tons) was made in a space out at Moorilla. The rest, as they say, is history. 

As it turns out we have a loose connection with Andrew's early vintages. The Tamar vineyard Iron Pot Bay was one of Andrew's clients at that time and their chardonnay was one of PJ's favourite Tassie wines during the early nineties.

Andrew started the Wellington label on his return to Tasmania by using cabernet grapes from Eric Phillips (Elsewhere vineyard). The deal with Eric was that Andrew would use half the grapes to make a wine for himself. This was a "light fruit driven early drinking cabernet which I called easy cabernet" that ended up winning a gold medal in the first show in which it was entered. Eric's half of the grapes was made into a "heavier wood matured wine that had a lot more oomph than the easy cabernet". He couldn't have asked for a better start and the success of this initial effort had a lot to do with his skills, although he does admit that "luckily 1990 was a brilliant year".

In 2003 Andrew sold his business and with it went the Wellington label. The new owner lives in the US and unfortunately there was already a Wellington label so the label was retired despite Andrew's best efforts to argue that it could still be used in Australia. Selling such a successful business is never easy but as Andrew points out "I probably would have had to sell the business eventually anyway. Neither of my children are interested in wine making as a career".

Happily Andrew has been able to continue his involvement in the industry as a consultant at Frogmore Creek. "It's a very agreeable situation for me" he quips. Andrew believes that the young winemakers at Frogmore are making great wines and are "doing a better job than me".

Having covered Andrew's history we finished by asking him about how Frogmore stacks up against their major 'competitor' Wine Making Tasmania. "It's hard to compare and there's no point in doing that anyway" he replied. Fearing that this response was simply yet another example of our poor prior preparation we wanted to know why he didn't regard Julian Alcorso's outfit as competitors. He admitted that in theory they were competitors but "in practice we don't fight over clients or anything like that ... we enjoy healthy, non-contact competition ... we enjoy winning medals they would also like to win ... overall I think it's been very good for the industry".  It obviously works because between Frogmore and Wine Making Tasmania they won close to three quarters of the medals given at the most recent Tasmanian Wine Show.

The second part - Andrew's role and wine preferences

Having followed Andrew on his career we wanted to delve below the surface. We started by asking about Frogmore Creek and it's change in status from a certified organic producer. Andrew obviously was disappointed in the change but as he pointed out " no one in the business wanted to change the situation but it just became too expensive". In particular, controlling the weeds became a real issue and necessitated the move to using herbicides which meant that Frogmore could no longer be classed as an organic vineyard. We got the impression that this was a temporary setback and that in future Frogmore may be able to return to the way they prefer to operate and will regain their organic status.

Some of the tanks at Frogmore

We then discussed the relationship between a winemaker and viticulturalist. We asked what is the first thing Andrew talks about with new clients when they come in to discuss having Frogmore Creek make their wine. "Hopefully you would have come to me before you planted your vineyard" he replied. Andrew went on to say that he believes that there are a number of vineyards in Tasmania that "should never have been planted and will certainly never make money". He is concerned that there are still people who plant vines as a result of some romantic, but non-existent, notion that running a vineyard is all beer and skittles (er shouldn't that be all wine and skittles? - Ed).

This point led us to ask about what are the characteristics of a well located vineyard. For those of you who are contemplating starting a vineyard Andrew strongly suggests you need "reliability of ripening conditions, so relatively warm, relatively dry but if you are in a dry area you've got to make sure you have adequate water .. it's gotta be frost free" . He stressed the watering aspect by mentioning that there are a number of good viticultural areas in Tasmania that lack sufficient water. 

He then went on to talk about how you find out if you are looking at a frost prone site. In the old days you had to rely on local knowledge, which meant buying local farmers a few beers in the pub, but this approach is not your only option nowadays since "there is enough viticultural experience to know that there are some areas that are more frost prone than others .... certainly you can look at a piece of land and say that's not going to work ...  frost is just like a liquid - you can see exactly where it's going to bank up and where it's going to flow" 

Andrew and Puddleduck pinot

Being intrepid investors we wanted to know if the recent implosion of the managed investment schemes (MIS) has had any impact in Tasmania. We are happy to report that the impact has been minimal. It is fair to say that Andrew is not a fan of the MIS industry. "They have been hugely damaging to the industry ... they have contributed significantly to the over production we have in the industry" he says.

This may sound strange but Andrew has advised a lot of people not to plant a vineyard  "you're better off having a nice garden and drinking someone else's wine" he quipped. He agreed that vineyards are popular at least in part because it is an agricultural pursuit that can operate on a relatively small scale. This encourages people to believe that it is just the thing for a retired person to contemplate but he points out that people underestimate the work involved and as he says, when you retire you find you don't have the same level of energy.  He admits that the romantic view of winemaking that exists may have been caused in part by the existence of competent contract winemakers.

We couldn't speak to someone like Andrew and not find out what he believes has happened to the Tasmanian wine industry since he started. He argues that Tasmania is now recognised as a significant part of the ultra premium wine industry.  He believes that this recognition is wide spread and is the reason that big wine producers now source some of their premium quality grapes from Tasmania. He mentioned that Tasmania has established a real presence in sparkling wines and varieties such as riesling but especially in pinot.  As he says "anyone who is serious about pinot noir cannot afford not to be thinking about Tasmania".

Along with this recognition Andrew believes that there has been a real increase in the professionalism of the industry as a whole. " I see it particularly in the number and quality of the young qualified winemakers .... I can't think of a qualified winemaker who was in the industry when I first came here but now there are several and they are doing terrific things".

The home of Frogmore wine

Since Andrew mentioned pinot we thought it was a perfect opportunity to seek his opinion on a quote we had seen regarding the bouquet of your average pinot. In short pinot was accused of smelling like, to use the polite gardening term, manure.  Andrew pointed out that this reference was first used by Anthony Hanson in his book on Burgundy in the mid 80's. This aroma is apparently ok as long as the wine has good fruit and taste since the manure bouquet adds "complexity and interest ... but it is a matter of personal taste". So punters, we have both number ones (sav blanc smells of cat wee), and number twos covered - that's a relief (boom ...  tish - Ed).

Moving away from the bowels for a moment we wanted to know why pinot provokes such strong devotion in people. Andrew argued that Tasmanian pinot is the most versatile style of wine. It offers "elegance, finesse, complexity, balance  ... all the things that if you become keen on wine you start to look for ... it's also difficult to grow and make a good one".

Winepunters HQ's youngest member will be turning 18 in sixteen years and our thoughts have already turned to what to serve at the party. Andrew is about to become a grandfather for the first time and it turns out he had been thinking about that very issue. He quickly dismissed pinot as an option and then went on to suggest that a vintage Portugese port would be ideal. We pointed out that while we admire foreign plonk we wanted to put away a Tasmanian wine so he suggested a riesling.  We ended up buying a dozen of the Frogmore Creek 2007 Riesling which are now sitting in the Winepunters HQ cellar and, providing they survive the next sixteen Christmas parties, should be triumphantly revealed in 2025.

We moved on the personal questions and started by asking the question James Halliday said we should never ask a winemaker (You're not the boss of us! - Ed).  Andrew's favourite wine varieties are riesling, pinot and good chardonnay although, like us, he enjoys all well made wines. Probably due to his South Australian experience Andrew nominated Clare as one of his favourite wine regions in Australia. He also mentioned that he loved Hunter Valley although he would hate to have to make wine there due to the climate.

Frogmore vines

Asking Andrew about his best and worst wine experience revealed a story that will warm the hearts of all of us that have opened our mouths and promptly put our foot in it. Listen to the podcast - we don't want to spoil the fun. We were overjoyed to hear that  talking to winepunters was his best wine experience so far (well, it wasn't exactly what he said but we just jumped to a happy conclusion - Ed). 

To finish we unveiled our new personal question - "Here is a fictitious news headline and you have to fill in the missing word.  Andrew Hood failed former - beep - was seen in public today for the first time since his latest scandal. What is the beep".  Luckily for us another Andrew Hood had been arrested in Bangkok on drug charges so we all agreed that Andrew should embrace his namesake and be a failed former drug runner.

Home

What do you think? Send us a comment