Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th June 2012

Rutherglen Winery Walkabout  

Costumes and Cabernets attract the crowds for this fun-filled June Long weekend.  In its 38th year this is one festival you should not miss. PLUS - Our annual Giant Warehouse Sale will be held on Friday 8th June ONLY!

The Weekend Australian Magazine February 11-12, 2012

“Chris Pfeiffer’s daughter Jen was four years old when she accompanied her parents to an auction for a then-vacant building in Waghunyah, Victoria.  “I can remember how cold the floor was, and being incredibly bored,” she told me recently.

Rutherglen was in a dismal state: Lindemans’s had closed its Corowa fortified winery (across the Murray River, on the NSW side).  Seppelt was also turning its back, selling off vineyard land in pieces, and the old Seppeltsfield Distillery plus a couple of hectares of adjoining vines. 

Chris Pfeiffer had been the winemaker/manager of the Corowa winery, and had decided to accept the redundancy package rather than transfer to another part of the firm’s business.  Thus he had enough money to buy the distillery, start establishing the “brood stock” (very old muscat and Topaque), refurbish part of the building for making table wine and eventually introduce a cellar door.

Life went on for Jen.  At university she enrolled in science-law (because she didn’t know what else she wanted to do).  Almost accidentally, work experience at Brown Brothers and overseas travel in France and Portugal added to her winemaking experience.  On her return there was an option of joining the family business and she did so in 2001, still with no certainty that this would become a lifetime job.  There was no Eureka moment, but in 2005 she became de facto chief winemaker, albeit with Chris ever able to give advice when needed.

Jen has the same self-set mission as any good winemaker: “To make better wines than I have ever made before”.  In 2010 she did spectacularly well; Pfeiffer Wines won the trophy for Most Successful Exhibitor at the 2011 Victorian Wines Show, Trophies for the 2010 Merlot and the 2010 Shiraz, and top gold medals for the 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, NV Grand Topaque and NV Classic Topaque.

Overall, the 2011 year showered Pfeiffer with eight trophies, 16 gold medals and 15 silver medals.  Bronze medals?  Too many to count.