VANYA CULLEN WINS OUTSTANDING VITICULTURIST AT delicious. HARVEY NORMAN PRODUCE AWARDS

Cullen Wines is thrilled to announce that Vanya Cullen was honoured to receive the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Award for Outstanding Viticulturist, hot on the heels of last week’s 2022 Halliday Wine Companion Viticulturist of the Year Award.

The delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards unearth and celebrate the most innovative, sustainable and ethical produce and producers in the country, championing the best Australian produce and the people behind it. “I am thrilled that our efforts towards sustainable wine growing here at Cullen have been recognised in this light. It’s so important now to action the climate change crisis through sustainable land care,” said Vanya Cullen.

Vanya acknowledged the rarity of winning two awards for viticulture, and that it’s a first at Cullen Wines since achieving biodynamic certification. “It’s very pleasing to have lived through the resistance and being cast aside from mainstream Australian wine since 2004 when we went biodynamic, to now, with the environmental section of the Australian wine industry having reached a tipping point. It recognises and acknowledges that wine quality and land health are linked, and most vignerons have at least some aspects of sustainability in their processes. May the momentum continue!”

Mike Bennie’s beautiful words accompanied the announcement of Vanya Cullen as the winner of the ‘Outstanding Viticulturist’ Award: “This year’s winner is a leading light of biodynamic farming, extolling the benefits of holistic farming while producing some of Australia’s benchmark wines. An inspiration to many, a resource and teacher, she continues to push the boundaries of winemaking while maintaining the quality of her top-tier wines. Better yet, this is the 50th year of the winery and vineyard’s existence, a potent moment for this outstanding farmer.”

The win coincides with Cullen Wines’ 50-year anniversary celebrations, marking half a century since planting their first Cabernet vines, with Vanya noting “It’s 50 years of sustainable wine growing preceded by 65,000 years of Wadandi sustainable land care.” Since 1971 when the Cullen Estate was planted, chemical intervention was minimal and the family’s concern for the environment paramount. Cullen Wines has been organic and certified biodynamic for more than 20 years and is the only ‘carbon positive’ winery in Australia, achieving certification in 2019. The vineyard sequesters more carbon than the business emits.

Published Tuesday 17th August 2021