Everything that has a beginning has an end... Our doors are now closed.

Yes, in the words of the Looney Tunes character Porky Pig, "That's All, Folks!", Collective Barossa officially closed its doors on February 26th, 2012, after twenty-five months of promoting not only the wines of the three Barossan families wineries Gumpara Wines, Karra Yerta Wines and Kurtz Family Vineyards, but the Barossa Valley, the Barossa Museum and many other wineries and tourist regions of South Australia, and even Australia.

It was not an easy run right from the beginning with the objections to my Collective Barossa liquor license application from local (and not so local) other liquor related large businesses but we managed to face the adversity and work together well, despite the sudden drop out in August 2010 of one of the four wineries involved in the original concept. The three remaining wineries worked incredibly well together and we had a lot of fun. Mark of Gumpara, Steven of Kurtz Family Vineyards and I remain the best of mates and if the future provides the opportunity, we will work together from our own cellar doors, at our own homes doing functions together.

I will be writing much more about our experiences and closure in a future Karra Yerta Wines blog post but for now, we would all like to thank those who supported us and the many people who came in and had fun with us. We truly did have a great time meeting so many wonderful people. It was a very special thing to be constantly told we were one of, if not the, friendliest and most unpretentious cellar doors in our region. If you wanted grass roots of the local industry, we were it.

Make no mistake about it - the wine industry is tough, and even with us having fantastic products at more than reasonable prices for the low production that they are, it's still a tough sell, and a few life changes made me reassess the viability of keeping the Collective Barossa doors open in January 2012. A decision to close at the end of February was made. We apologise to our customers who may still be looking for us on their travels to Tanunda but the move was swift and necessary.

Gumpara Wines and Kurtz Family Vineyards are still carrying on with business as usual and you can contact them direct or via our (former) business email address on this page. Karra Yerta is winding down as I am looking to start a new career. Decisions about the future of Karra Yerta (ie whether James will still continue to make small batch wines in 2013 and on) will be made in due course. For 2012, Karra Yerta on-sold most of our grapes to two other local wineries, and the remainder will be left hanging on the vines, to be cut off at pruning time.

So for now, this is our last hurrah but stay tuned for my Karra Yerta blog post in the near future. As the manager of Collective Barossa and the partner of Karra Yerta, I sure do have my own perspective on the future of the wine industry. Again, to the many new friends we all made, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It was a life changing experience to meet you all, and none of us would change a thing. We really did love being there, and providing our customers with a unique experience! (And as an aside, I have to say that my favourite visitors were the German tourists to the region - they were always a total pleasure to have in-store, be it for wine tasting or the Museum. I really will miss meeting so many interesting people.)

The photos accompanying this post are of Mark and Steven bringing in our sign for the very last time, of my two sons behind the counter for the last time, and of our final two tasters - a lovely German couple.

Cheers for now,
Marie (and James, Daniel, Matthew, Steven, Mark and Cheryl)

Eighteen months on, and still going strong.

Things have been very busy at Collective Barossa since April, as you can see from the lack of posts on this page. The team has still been working hard; vintage is over (Kurtz Family Vineyards and Gumpara Wines had a successful one, Karra Yerta not-so. For the first time in many years, not a single grape was picked from the old Eden Valley vineyard - you can read more about that at the Karra Yerta Wines blog), and the pruning is well underway. How time flies, when you're in the wine business!

We are all still having fun and enjoying pouring our wines for our customers. There's lots of laughs to be had, often, especially when there are a few of us behind the counter. After eighteen months, the team is really running like a well-oiled machine. It's great. We've each met some fabulous people - both customers and other people in the business. It's a very rewarding thing and our wines are not only travelling far and wide within Australia, but to many corners of the world. Inspirational!

It's still a tough time in the wine industry, for various reasons, but at Collective Barossa, Steve, Mark, James and I are committed to bringing our wines to the world, and love meeting our customers in person. If you are going past, do drop in. We've been having small groups visit us too, which is fantastic but please make sure that you make a booking so that we can go the extra yard to make your visit really special.

To keep on top of who's in-store serving, keep an eye on our Twitter account or our Facebook page as I post daily, usually. We have had a lot of our social media contacts come and see us in the shop and it's fabulous. Social media is kind of like having pen-pals and when someone introduces themselves as such and such (username), it's always a wonderful surprise:)

That's it for now, but if I get some spare time tomorrow, behind the counter, I'll post an update of staff changes and new items, new releases etc in the shop. It feels good to dust the cobwebs off the blogging keyboard:)

Cheers for now,
Marie

It's almost Vintage Festival time!

On Easter Saturday, the 2011 Barossa Vintage Festival kicks off. This is one of Australia's biggest festivals and celebrates not only the end of harvest for the local wine industry, but our food, history and many other wonderful attractions that make the Barossa Valley so special.

At Collective Barossa, we will be celebrating too, despite the fact that vintage is about a month delayed, which means we will still be tending to grapes and wines, but somewhere in all of our busy schedules, we will make time for some fun, as is the Barossan way.

On Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday, I will be joined by Shane Barker of The Lonely Grape, who will be showcasing some of the fabulous McLaren Vale wines alongside of our own Collective Barossa wines. This is a fabulous opportunity to taste the differences of terroir. Shane will have different wines from seven McLaren Vale wineries and the twenty-plus wines from the three Collective Barossa wineries will include some very special bottles - some new releases and even some very rare museum stock wines will be opened. It will be a great experience, and no doubt Shane and I will have a lot of fun, as we did on his last visit, late in 2010.

Thursday 28th April is Tanunda Town Day and we will have Mark or Steven (maybe both, if they have finished their grape-picking!) in-store and they will also be in-store on Saturday 1st May, so it's a great chance to meet the guys and have their own wines poured for you, with their own hands.

The Barossa Valley Archives and Historical Trust also have an Open Day on Tanunda Town Day, with morse code demonstrations, and will be showing historical films depicting Barossa scenes and events, concluding with supper, from Monday 25th April to Friday 29th April - 6pm to 8pm, each night. Cost - $6 per person.

We look forward to seeing you during the week! It's going to be a lot of fun!

Cheers for now,
Marie

I heard it through the grapevine....

Vintage 2011 is just about upon us, so we are all gearing up for the busy months ahead. Mark found time between working in the Gumpara vineyard to attend the first ever State wine festival on February 25, 26 and 27 in Adelaide, Steven has been tending to his own vineyard and preparing for his vintage, James has been mowing and summer pruning the Karra Yerta vineyard before and after his full-time job, and I have been plugging away at all things shop orientated, with the help of the three guys on weekends.

We are all really busy, but happy with how things are going at Collective Barossa. In previous months we have had some fabulous visitors - various wine writers and other guests - and it's always fun for us to get together, often dragging our business meetings into the evening.

The passion of the people behind our counter is appreciated and recently we have received some amazing feedback, and we are most grateful, as it shows us that we are heading in the right direction. We do love what we do, and are glad that our customers and other visitors enjoy the time spent with us.

In 2011, we have lots of great plans yet to implement, but for the immediate future, we are all focussing on vintage and making more great wines for you to taste and buy. For the moment though, we are on our last stocks of Gumpara's 2007 Victor's Old Vine Shiraz, we have limited twin packs of the Kurtz Family Vineyards 2005 & 2006 Boundary Row Shiraz, and the Karra Yerta six pack verticals ('05 to '10 Eden Valley Riesling). The Karra Yerta 2010 Shiraz Grenache, which has been a big hit for summer, and only nineteen cases made in total, won't be around much longer either, so do pop in to see us, or phone and mail any orders through. We are happy to hold stock for up to a month for you:)

Cheers,
Marie

The Grape Escape!

Now that the Christmas and New Year comings and goings have settled, I can finally catch up on some posts for the blogs that I write. This post is about a wonderful weekend (on November 21st and 22nd, 2010) that we had at Collective Barossa with a special guest who brought some amazing wines from another superb wine region of South Australia - McLaren Vale.

Shane Barker is a friend of mine from McLaren Vale who owns a business called The Lonely Grape and is an administrator of a website and Facebook page called Taste McLaren Vale. Through Collective Barossa, I promote a selection of smaller wineries from the Barossa, and Shane does the same with wineries from the McLaren Vale area. His finds are always of exceptional quality and value, and as a great fan of McLaren Vale, especially their grenache wines, I very much enjoy Shane coming to visit so that I can learn more about the wines from his region.

Having comparison tastings is one of the things I love to do at Collective Barossa, and we will be doing more of this in 2011. Comparison tastings are having the same varietals tasted alongside each other eg. McLaren Vale shiraz tasted alongside a Barossa Shiraz, McLaren Vale Grenache tasted alongside a Barosa Grenache etc.

Some of the wines that Shane showcased along-side of our Gumpara, Karra Yerta and Kurtz wines wereWillunga Creek 2007 Out for a Duck Cabernet, Thorpe Wines Sparkling Shiraz, Caught Red Handed 2008 Shiraz and Sabella Vineyards 2007 Shiraz. It was a fabulous selection and I enjoyed trying these wines as much as our customers did. How lucky are we to live in such a great state that has so many wonderful wines?

Cheers for now,
Marie

Collective Barossa Christmas Goodies!

Yes, being only four weeks until Christmas Eve, you have permission to start panicking about Christmas. Most people are already in a frenzy and don't think about ways to make it an easier, more relaxed time. I do this by shopping locally for gifts as I cannot stand the madness of lobbing into crowded shopping centres with stressed-out customers.

Collective Barossa has a small but special selection of goodies for Christmas gifts, and you can have a taste of wine for free, while shopping! It doesn't get much better than that really.

Linda from Footeside Farm has come up with two lovely new ideas for Christmas: A small rustic Gift-Box which has macadamia oil and dukkah with a small dish for the oil. The second item is a Large Gift Basket which contains a bottle of Karra Yerta Wine (red and white wine packs avaiable), a jar of dukkah, macadamia oil, wattleseed cookies, a jar of Apricots in Port, a dish for the oil and two wine glasses, all beautifully presented on a woven cane-type platter.

For the serious wine lover, we have the Karra Yerta Wines Eden Valley Riesling six pack which includes the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 single vineyard wines at a bargain price. I can almost guarantee that you would not find another offer like that anywhere in Australia. Looking for something that no-one else will buy for your someone special, then look no further. The 2009 riesling received a Bronze Medal at the 2009 Canberra International Riesling Challenge and the 2010 riesling won Gold at the 2010 Canberra International Riesling Challenge. The other vintages were highly rated by various writers as well so the quality and value in this pack is second to none.

The very special three Gumpara Liqueurs are available in a quality gift-box and are a real taste of luxury for those who like a classy tipple. I find the liqueur semillon poured over vanilla icecream and fresh grapes delightful on a hot day. Christmas Day lunch dessert, perhaps...?

For the bookworm there is the Wine Companion, Adelaide Hills Magazine, Vinodiversity, Barossa Wine Traveller, or from the Museum book-store, a small but amazing collection of historical books/booklets.

Finally, the artwork that is on display is all for sale (aside from Tony's lovely Art Nouveau style mirror) and there are the delicious Gully Garden goodies. I am also hoping to have our first arrival of Collective Barossa wine glasses in time for Christmas. I'll keep you posted on that.

Much like the wines available at Collective Barossa, our range is not enormous but if you are seeking something unique at a great price, and don't want the hassle of dealing with crowds, then pop in and see what we have in-store, if only to taste the Sparkling Shiraz which is absolutely perfect with ham and turkey:)

Cheers for now,
Marie

Latest news and reviews! November 2010

The past months have literally flown by, and subsequently, I have been tardy on updating the blogs that I write. So, the next month, before the busy Christmas Season starts, will be spent posting much information including events or goodies that will be put in place for the Festive Season.

I have updated the 'Wine List' and 'Medals & Awards' pages on this blog, tonight and here are a few of the latest reviews on the Gold Medal winning Karra Yerta 2010 Eden Valley Riesling:

http://winewilleatitself.blogspot.com/2010/10/2010-karra-yerta-riesling.html

http://www.ozwinereview.com/2010/10/karra-yerta-riesling-2010.html

http://fullpour.com/2010/10/karra-yerta-riesling-2010.html

Philip White rated this wine at 94+++ points with a cellar life of up to thirty years!

Karra Yerta has also released a six pack vertical of their rieslings, from and including the 2005 to 2010 vintages and this rare offering is available from Collective Barossa for $150 per six pack, plus delivery. Karra Yerta has also released a stunning new red wine, which has had minimal oak treatment; a 2010 Shiraz Grenache for $20 per bottle. With a lower alc/vol level of 13.5%, it is a perfect day-time red wine.

Gumpara Wines 2007 Victors Old Vine Shiraz stocks are getting low, as are the Kurtz Family Vineyards 2005 Boundary Row Shiraz. The Kurtz Family Vineyards 2006 Lunar Block is also available but stocks are extremely limited. The 96 point Halliday rating ensures that this wine is a sell-out every year, and due to the overwhelming demand, it is not available for tasting. New releases from both of these wineries will be available in the coming months.

Cheers for now,
Marie