Gabrielle Duykers, Naracoorte Community News
In the latest addition to her many accolades, Cath Kidman of Wynns Coonawarra Estate has been crowned Viticulturist of the Year at the recent 2021 Women in Wine and Spirits Awards.
Ms Kidman was one of 50 finalists to win one of the 18 award categories, with recipients spanning across 12 countries and regions around the globe.
The seasoned viticulturist said the award came as a “massive shock and surprise”.
“It’s very humbling to be in the presence of international women doing great things in all facets of wine,” Ms Kidman said.
Hosted in China, the awards were first initiated in 2020 to recognise aspiring and accomplished women in the global beverage industry.
Growing up in Victoria’s famous Yarra Valley wine region, Ms Kidman developed an affinity for viticulture at a young age.
“Wine was always in my backyard,” she said.
“I love being outside so for me the natural step was to go into the vineyards rather than into winemaking.
“I get to have this marriage of two worlds – the science aspect and also being able to have the artistic play out in the vineyards trialling new techniques and being creative.”
In her work at Wynns Coonawarra, Ms Kidman leads a number of cutting-edge trials in partnership with the CSIRO and students from the University of Adelaide.
She is currently testing different techniques to help make vineyards healthier and more resilient to climate change.
“Working towards a more sustainable future is what drives me,” Ms Kidman said.
She is currently running a long-term trial on a 1984 heritage selection of vines at Wynns – known as the Johnson’s Block – to test the extent of vines’ drought resilience.
This crop was dry grown and had endured more than 60 years of Coonawarra climate without irrigation.
In the summer of 2016, the hottest on record for Coonawarra, Ms Kidman noticed these vines were doing remarkably well.
“The unirrigated vines were actually outperforming others,” Ms Kidman said. “They looked really happy, had lovely growth and canopy, good yield as well, and the fruit quality was still outstanding.”
After a series of physiological tests, the Johnson’s Block vines proved to have better drought resilience or “water status” than other vines.
“It sort of got us thinking about whether this memory they’ve built up over the decades can be inherited or passed onto the next generation.”
Ms Kidman took cuttings from the Johnson’s Block vines and propagated them out into a new vineyard back in 2018.
Some of the young vines are receiving full irrigation, others about 50 per cent, and a small portion receive none.
Ms Kidman said the trial will continue over the next few years.
“We’re hypothesising that these vines are actually adapting to the environments they live in out in the vineyards,” she said.
When asked which areas of viticulture she would like to see more experiments in, she said the list was “endless”.
“The older I get and the more I delve into things, the more I realise there’s so many rabbit holes that you could go down,” Ms Kidman said.
“With the advent of new technologies and with the data curation that we’re doing, I just think the sky’s the limit.”
Ms Kidman was also named the 2020 Gourmet Traveller WINE Viticulturist of the Year and 2020 Viticulturist of the Year at the Australian Women in Wine Awards.
This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.
