Glorious gold for Harcourt winery

                        Striking gold: Quinn, Kye and Barbara Livingstone of Harcourt Valley Vineyard.

Harcourt Valley Vineyards has won a gold medal for their 2008 Sightings Cabernet Shiraz at the prestigious London International Wine Show, the biggest wine show in the world, attracting over 25,000 entries from across the globe.
It was one of only five Australian red wines, priced at $20 or less, to be awarded with a gold medal. All this glory for a wine they originally never intended on making!
Winemaker Quinn Livingstone said the winning wine evolved from a batch of cabernet sauvignon that didn't quite reach the mark.
"There was nothing wrong with it - it just wasn't up to our normal standard. So I thought I would bottle it as a cleanskin, however I had a couple of other local winemakers over one day and we decided to see if we could make something of it," he said.
"We had a table covered in wine samples and we began running lots of different trials and blends. We used some of our 2009 vintage to freshen the wine and started adding Shiraz too. Eventually we came up with a blend we were really happy with and decided to release our first ever Cabernet Shiraz under our `Sightings' label.
"Sightings is our second 'cheaper' label, but by no means does it lack in quality - the Sightings wines are often knocking off wines three to four times their price in wine shows."
Quinn runs the winery with his brother, Kye and mother, Barbara.
They were thrilled with the win after making a last-minute decision to send the wine over to London on the back of its success in Australian Wine Shows last year.
"It is a great expense to send a wine to the London IWC, each entry costs $200 plus six bottles of wine. We would love to send all out wines over, however for a small producer with a limited budget you have to be very selective and only send what you think has a really good chance," Kye said.
Late last year the wine won the Trophy for Best Red Wine and Best Cabernet Blend at the prestigious Le Concours des Vins du Victoria.
"It's just a pity the wine has almost sold out, we don't plan on making the blend again either, it was a one-off."
Barbara Livingstone said she was very proud of her two boys
"They have been putting so much time and effort in to the wines, vineyard and property. They really deserve to do well," she said.
Harcourt Valley Vineyards has had great success lately with over 70 medals and six trophies last year alone, becoming Bendigo's most awarded winery.