Latest news with #Gleave
Man of Many
17 hours ago
- Business
- Man of Many
This $30 Aussie Wine Was Just Named The Nation's Best
By Nick Hall - News Published: 16 June 2025 Share Copy Link Readtime: 3 min Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here. Willunga 100's 2023 McLaren Vale Grenache has won a trio of top honours at the 2025 National Wine Show. has won a trio of top honours at the 2025 National Wine Show. The red wine secured the Grenache Trophy, Best Red Wine of Show, and the Prime Minister's Trophy . . Willunga 100 expression was sourced from its own estate vineyard in Blewitt Springs. The Grenache's win marks the first time the variety has won in the show's 50-year history. Who said cheap wine can't be grandiose? In a stunning upset that has shocked the domestic wine market, a $30 Grenache from McLaren Vale has been named 'Best in Show' at the National Wine Show. The 2023 McLaren Vale Grenache from South Australian producer Willunga 100 claimed the event's top honour, marking the first time that the variety has won in the show's 50-year history, but it wasn't done there. In addition to taking out the top prize, the 2023 vintage also nabbed the Grenache Trophy and the Prime Minister's Trophy, cementing its place amongst the drinks industry's most awarded red wine releases. Social post confirming the win | Image: Willunga 100/Instagram The brainchild of chief winemaker Renae Hirsch and Willunga 100 founder and director David Gleave, the 2023 Grenache is a true ode to South Australian terroir. The drop is made from fruit grown at Willunga 100's own Blind Spot Vineyard in Blewitt Springs, a site that Gleave reveals is prized for its more than 60-year-old dry-grown bush vines and deep sandy soils. 'Willunga 100 acquired this vineyard in 2019 and, and after getting to know the site, began to transition to organic viticulture,' Gleve explained. 'The result is seen in this wine, which is made with excellent quality fruit thanks to the work of our vineyard team, led by Alex Sas.' For Gleave and co, the introduction of organic production continued the label's long-standing approach to contemporary winemaking. Since opening in 2005, Willunga 100 has become synonymous with premium Grenache from McLaren Vale, a category that was previously thought to be undervalued. Willunga 100 Vineyard in McLaren Vale | Image: Willunga 100 Integrations such as its Single Vineyard range, sourced from two distinguished sites in the Blewitt Springs and Clarendon sub-regions, have helped to establish the brand as a true industry innovator, but success hasn't shifted the goal. The label continues to focus primarily on low-intervention winemaking, with chief winemaker Renae Hirsch describing the latest win as a testament to the process. 'To receive the Grenache Trophy, Best Red of Show, and the Prime Minister's Trophy all in one year is credit to the work we do in the vineyard and the winery,' Hirsch said. 'This is a single-vineyard wine from Blewitt Springs that retails for $30, and the awards reinforce our belief in the potential of this variety and its ability to deliver wines of elegance, depth, and regional expression.' Willunga 100 2023 McLaren Vale Grenache | Image: Willunga 100 Open only to wines which have won gold or silver medals at other regional shows, The National Wine Show remains one of the country's leading wine exhibitions. According to the event organisers, entrants are judged by a panel of respected wine professionals and critics, with previous winners of the Prime Minister's Trophy including Yarra Yerring 2021 Underhill Shiraz in 2023, and Murdoch Hill 2022 Rocket Chardonnay in 2024. The award-winning 2023 McLaren Vale Grenache is available for just $30 via the official Willunga 100 website and through selected fine wine retailers. Tastings are also available at the Grenache Room, situated in the restored Moritz family cottage at the Blind Spot Vineyard. This immersive experience is described by Willunga 100 as 'dedicated solely to exploring Grenache in all its forms'.
Telegraph
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The grim reality of living in a Cotswold village overrun by tourists
Teenagers filming TikTok videos on your doorstep, random tourists walking past your back garden while you're sunbathing French style (if you catch my drift), and finding a noisy American peering through your front window. It's all par for the course when you live in a Cotswold hotspot, says Broadway resident Claire Gleave. 'We have gates in front of our house and we have, on occasion, found young girls filming TikTok videos at the end of our driveway,' says Gleave. 'Once we had an entire family from Japan walking down to take pictures of the house. That was pretty intrusive and our kids really didn't like it.' Overtourism in the Cotswolds has been under the spotlight this week after the chocolate-box village of Bibury announced restrictions on coaches – a move that will certainly have the backing of fed-up residents. Gleave, who also runs a holiday let in equally winsome Broadway, grew up in another Cotswold honeypot, Bourton-on-the-Water. 'I remember the police stopping people coming in on occasion because it was so overcrowded. We had to prove we lived there and point to our house,' she says. Another Broadway resident, Claire Alexander, who used to run The Ebrington Arms near Chipping Campden and now owns The Killingworth Castle, a pub with rooms near Blenheim Palace, says she has really come to dread the Cheltenham Festival week, held every March. 'It's the horror of the tweed fashion show that descends in the village during Cheltenham. You can't move for fur gilets and red faces pacing up and down the High Street. It's quite the combination,' she says. At her pub, however, they have the best of both worlds, Alexander says. 'We have a fab mix of locals and tourists and that creates the best atmosphere. Being so close to the Soho Farmhouse, we often get celebrities popping in for a pint… because they want a proper pub.' Many of Alexander's guests tell them they will be visiting Bibury while they are there too. 'We always tell them to go there early in the morning or after 4pm when the coaches have long gone,' she says. The Cotswolds region, an area of outstanding national beauty (AONB), which covers five counties, including Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire, stretches over almost 800 miles and attracts more than 35 million visitors a year. It is home to a plethora of A-listers including Kate Moss, Calvin Harris, David and Victoria Beckham, Liv Tyler, Ellen de Generes and Simon Cowell, and has been dubbed 'The Hamptons' of the UK. Over in Chipping Norton, home to Amazon Prime star Jeremy Clarkson and Alex James of Nineties Britpop band Blur, locals say they are deluged every weekend. Jenny Holliday, who moved to 'Chippy' from London in 2020, says they deliberately chose a town that didn't have a coach park (unlike Bibury and Bourton-on-the-Water) and was a bit less touristy. 'But there are tell-tale signs that the town is becoming more of a tourist hotspot now. The house opposite ours is now an Airbnb and various cars, usually big fancy SUVs, are parked outside,' Holliday says. Then there are the queues of pilgrims going to visit Clarkson's farm shop, Diddly Squat. 'We call them the 'Diddly cars' – mostly classic and sports cars – and they usually flood the town on a weekend. And you know it's almost the Easter holidays because of the increase in ones with massive roof boxes,' says Holliday. Amanda Stecker is the founder of Unique Cotswold Cottages, which has a number of properties in the so-called 'Golden Triangle' of Burford, Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold. She says visitors are both a blessing and a curse. 'We have seen tourists block driveways, park in our parking spaces (signposted for our guests) and go right up to the windows of our cottages to take a photo of the interior,' she says. 'In Bourton-on-the-Water, there has been lots of talk from locals about coaches [which] have been spotted dangerously parked on double yellow lines to let their passengers out.' Stecker says they are mindful of the impact their guests can have. 'It's a fine balance of tourists bringing in much-needed income to the local pubs, restaurants and shops but also being respectful – especially in the summer months when it gets very busy,' she notes. Roanna Strombery-Smith, who lives in Lechlade, just up the road from both Bibury and Bampton, where Downton Abbey was filmed, says she regularly sees her local area being overrun. 'I think some of the visitors think that these are just model villages rather than places where people actually live,' adds Strombery-Smith, CEO of The RSS Brand, a Cotswold concierge service. Danni McCabe, who lives in Chipping Camden and runs Cotswold Bridal Couture, says that sometimes tourists come in to park on the High Street to walk the 102-mile Cotswold Way and leave their cars there for a week. 'We don't get the big coaches, thankfully, but we do attract a lot of visitors to the town, including walkers, holidaymakers staying in Airbnbs and those who are here for weddings.' Some Cotswold hotspots, however, are a bit less busy than others. One couple, who didn't want to be named but have a cottage in Upper Slaughter, a village which is so pretty it could be from a Lewis Carroll book, says that most tourists are quite respectful. 'Sometimes you can't even spot who the tourists are, although they do tend to dawdle a bit more – and locals are usually the ones with dogs,' they said. 'We've never actually had anyone park in one of our parking spots. I think because we're a bit off the beaten track here, it's that bit quieter.' A friend, however, who used to have a cottage just off the famous Arlington Row in Bibury, is still traumatised by an involuntary run-in with a tourist who mistook the track which ran adjacent to her house as a public bridlepath. He strolled down to find her sunbathing topless in her back garden. She didn't know who was more shocked.
