When Steven and Natalie Worley founded The Hairy Arm in 2004, they were both recently retired (and still young!) exploration geologists. They had a real passion for wine and were starting to form a view on the wider world from accumulated life experience, and wanted to come at the wine industry from their own angle. Owner Steve Worley shared a bit about their pursuit of savoury wine – and the unique solution they found to compensate for chilly conditions!
"When it came to making wines, we identified a couple of key things we thought we could do differently. Firstly, we believed most wine was drunk too young, so we decided to hold back our first vintage by initially 4, then 5 years.
Second, we wanted to make generally more savoury wines! The latter wasn’t going to be so much of a challenge with one of our chosen varieties, Nebbiolo, (which is inherently in that mould), but the other, Shiraz, tends to have an abundance of fruit.
We chose one of the coldest growing regions on mainland Australia: Sunbury. All well and good, we grew fruit with loads of savoury character – but we were not always quite getting sufficient ripeness. One final step was required... it was a long shot at the time, but inspired by La Cote Blanche whites, we wondered if we could get that extra bit of ripeness by reflecting what sunlight we had back onto the grapes... using abalone shells, lots of them!
We collected and stock piled from canneries in Melbourne for months, then crushed and spread them under the vines. Within weeks, this blanket was reflecting light and heat back onto our fruit. The results have been amazing – we’ve consistently achieved optimal ripeness since completing our “shell” project in 2009...and we can drink to that!"