Smiddie the lab chick

"Men should understand that they shouldn't try to keep us down. That just turns us into superwomen."

 

Meet Kate Hill, mother, wife - and trophy-winning winemaker. In fact every wine Kate has made has won a medal; she knows what she's doing. And she credits some of her colleagues in the male-dominated wine industry, not for the help they gave her but the challenges they threw at her which only made her more determined to succeed.

Kate, of course, doesn’t see herself as a master winemaker. She’s confident but careful about her achievements to date.

"I know the kind of wine that I want to make, that I like making. But I never know when I open a bottle for the first time whether I've achieved that."

Kate grew up in Melbourne as Kate Smith ('Smiddie' to close friends). She married Charles Hill in 2007 and the same year launched her own wine label, Kate Hill Wines. But of course a lot happened between her suburban childhood and launching her own wine label.

Although she grew up in Melbourne Kate spent much of her childhood holidays on her grandparents’ farms her grandparents. One of these, “Bundilla”, was on the River Murray in the Riverina. As well as living amid "beautiful birds, water and trees" she learnt a lot about farm life during these holidays ­- how to drive a tractor, how to shoot and fix fences and how to work the irrigation system. Of her four sisters, she took to these activities most naturally. Even now her eyes light up as she describes her love of nature and agricultural life.

Following this love, Kate pursued science at university, specialising in biochemistry and botany. It was after a period of overseas travel that she had her first in a series of life-changing “accidents”. A postgraduate diploma in tourism and marketing, and a job at the Victorian Wineries Tourism Council, exposed her to the Wine Industry Journal. Its technical focus rekindled her interest in science and, in particular, the science of winemaking.

Several wine appreciation courses later and a stint working at De Bortoli’s cellar door, Kate noticed a call for applications to a winemaking course in Adelaide. Her lack of self-confidence combined with her gender ("If I'd asked any of the men around me they'd probably have said I should go back into marketing or tourism"), plus the $10,000 fee, turned her off.

But only temporarily. Mentioning the course to a friend his eyes lit up, even more so when he heard that Kate's father had offered to pay for it. It was this friend’s reaction that allowed her to recognise what she really wanted to do – another life-changing moment. "It's because of him that I'm a winemaker," she says, a hint of a tear in her eye.

Having been accepted into the course there was more hands-on experience at De Bortoli’s. After answering phones for a time she expressed interest in helping with the vintage. They gave her more telephone work.

But then one day, out of the blue, David Slingsby-Smith (who passed away in 2010, much to Kate's sadness) walked into her little receptionist booth with a pair of gumboots. "Here you go Kate. Put these on and come with me." And so Kate became the De Bortoli "lab chick" and helped supervise the vintage.

On completing the winemaking course in Adelaide, Kate worked in California’s Napa Valley, Chile's Maipo Valley and Maison Chapoutier in France's Northern Rhone Valley before returning to Australia to work for Houghtons in Western Australia. All these experiences were valuable for Kate. "Winemaking doesn't really change all that much. The processes are the same the world over. But it was really useful to learn about different styles and people's different tastes in wine."

Kate learned other things while she away, too. She learned that she wanted to settle for a while somewhere in Australia. And she had gained confidence in her ability to make good wine, partly through the menial jobs she had to perform. I ask Kate, a little cheekily, if she thinks that men create superwomen by keeping them in lowly jobs. She laughs.

"I guess if they keep you down the ladder for long enough you learn to do anything a man can do – you get the spanner and fix the pumps, drive the forklift, you clean the tanks and you clear out the press. Once I’d done all these things I had a far better understanding of the wine-making process. And I was much more determined to succeed."

Sure enough, in 2002 Kate's experience and skill saw her become the assistant winemaker at Orlando. Ironically her boss was a woman too. "Women ended up running the place because the men didn't want to work there. They all headed off to the more glamorous regions, like the Barossa."

Kate became Orlando’s head winemaker in 2003. Although winemaking for a company like Orlando is a team effort, as the grapes tend to be shipped to various vineyards for blending, Kate was responsible for one particular wine made on-site - the 2004 Gramps Botrytis Semillon - which won a trophy in the Sydney Wine Show.

Resigning from Orlando at the end of 2005 she wondered, “What’s next?” A family friend asked her "What do you really want to be doing?" – prompting her to reply, "I want to make beautiful sparkling wine."

Kate had her answer. But to make beautiful sparkling wine Kate needed a cool climate, ideally within Australia. Tasmania was the obvious choice. Six months with Stefano Lubiana gave her a good opportunity to look around and to make up her mind if she wanted to stay. "And yes, how could you not want to be here?"

So Kate knew what she wanted to do and where she was going to do it. But there was one last hitch: finding work as a winemaker in Tasmania proved to be more difficult than she had anticipated. 

"I had all these ideas for how I could help people with their wines and I wondered why they weren't calling me for help. I started thinking maybe I could do it all myself.” And then she laughs and says, “So I did!” It’s a laugh that expresses both confidence and surprise at her boldness. 

Kate's first two wines, the 2008 Kate Hill Pinot Noir and the 2008 Kate Hill Riesling were both the best wines in their respective classes at various wine shows (her Pinot won Best Wine in Show at the Tasmanian Wine Show just last year).

Successive vintages have brought more acclaim, so much so that Kate admits to nervousness as she tastes each vintage for the first time. "A lot of the result is luck - the quality of the fruit that year makes a huge difference. But then you need to know what you're doing to get the result that you want. That's the process that I find challenging but the most rewarding."

At forty (only just - her birthday was at the beginning of February) Kate has a glow about her that signals a woman very satisfied with where she has reached. "Yes, two beautiful healthy children, a husband and my own business, doing what I love doing. I feel very lucky."

But you make your own luck. As a famous golfer once said, "The more I practise, the luckier I get." If her accumulating trophies are anything to go by, Kate just keeps getting luckier.