Yalumba: A Family Success Story

Yalumba is Australia's oldest family owned winery and is still owned by the Hill Smith family today. At Yalumba ‘doing the little things brilliantly’ forms the foundation for their commitment to quality.

With the experience of over 150 years comes the confidence to dare to be different and challenge the status quo, in pursuit of the extra dimensions that set Yalumba wines apart.

In the past year alone Yalumba have won 19 trophies, 47 gold medals and 90 silver medals. A result that is indicative of Yalumba's reputation within the industry and its recent successes.

Most recently, at the 2006 Sydney International Wine Competition, Yalumba won the Wine Society Perpetual Trophy for The Most Successful Winery. This trophy is awarded to the winemaker who achieves the most award winners from the 2006 competition – spectacular considering more than 2,000 wines entered the 2006 competition, representing nearly 500 brands from all over the world.

Yalumba also won the Chairman of Judges Perpetual Trophy for Wine of Outstanding Quality. A limited release of fine dry red wine that they are keeping under their hat but it will be available later this year.

A year ago, at the 2005 Sydney International Wine Competition the Yalumba Barossa Shiraz 2002 was awarded the Kemeny's 'Best Value Red Wine' Perpetual Trophy.

There have been too many awards to list them all but one of the highlights came in July 2005, when the fourth Langton's classification announced the inclusion of Yalumba The Octavius for the first time, ranked as ‘Outstanding’.

And then there's the Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier. Since its first vintage release, seven years ago, this wine has earned seventeen trophies and thirty-one gold medals at various shows.

At the 2005 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show Yalumba made its presence known with Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2004 taking out Best Wine of Show, Best White Wine and Best Wine in an Alternative Closure, as well as Yalumba Hand Picked Series Tempranillo + Grenache + Viognier 2004 receiving the award for Best Red Wine.

Part of doing the little things brilliantly, Yalumba believes in sharing the future. With an environmental management programme which expands the whole of their business, Yalumba believes, environment-friendly sustainable activities are recognised as an essential component of wine quality.

Yalumba is the first Australian company to be recognised as leader by the Australian Greenhouse Office. Leadership status is based on satis-factory delivery of an agreed action plan, which in Yalumba's case incorporates the Greenhouse Friendly programme and a comprehensive emissions management program that spans the lifecycle of winemaking.

Land stewardship (land management), product stewardship (packaging), waste management and environmental citizenship (individual duty of care) are all part of the action plan.

Yalumba was one of the first enterprises from the agricultural sector to join the Greenhouse Challenge Plus programme, having entered their Co-operative Agreement in 1999.