perfect wine
By Wine Atlas, Wednesday 7 December 2005 :: Wine - Australia :: #89 :: rss
Clive Otto received some belated industry acknowledgment last week when one of Australia’s best-read wine magazines, Winestate, named him the Australian Winemaker of the Year 2005.
Not bad for a man who was relatively recently made redundant after 16 years as winemaker at Vasse Felix.
And for good measure the publication also thought Mr Otto’s 2001 Heytesbury Cabernet Sauvignon was the best wine of the year, ahead of 10,000 entries from Australia and New Zealand. Mr Otto says the award is a great honour and one he is immensely proud of.
“To me, the award is recognition of all the hard work that went into 16 years at Vasse Felix,” Mr Otto says.
“The Winestate award is acknowledgment amongst my peers. and to receive it in this way is very pleasing.”
Among those Mr Otto beat to win the award were fellow Western Australian Robert Bowen from Houghton’s Winery, and South Australians Chester Osborne from d’Arenberg, Richard Langford from Elderton, and Bruce Gregory from Majella.
Mr Otto has become one of the most respected figures in the Margaret River wine community and many attribute his commitment to quality and teamwork as the catalysts to Vasse Felix’s success.
Having amassed an incredible record at the winery where he cut his teeth for the trade, Mr Otto believes his long tenure at the company eventually helped him achieve his goals.
“Staying in one place allows you to fine tune things. In five years you barely get to know how things work, in 10 years you can begin to fine tune your work,” Mr Otto says.
“In 15 years you can gain an imm-ense amount from your experience.”
With an attitude like this that it came as a shock to Mr Otto and the collective wine community when a restructure of Vasse Felix could not find room for the respected winemaker.
It is believed changes to respon-sibilities in export wine marketing and winemaking supervision prompted Mr Otto’s redundancy.
And so now it seems one of the most talented winemakers in the country is looking for a new place to hang up his pruner – and he wants it to be Margaret River.
Continue reading: wabusinessnews.com.au
