Millionaire Perth businessman Nigel Gallop has hired multi-award winning winemaker Clive Otto for his newly commissioned state-of-the-art winery at Fraser Gallop Estate in Margaret River.
Millionaire Perth businessman Nigel Gallop has hired multi-award winning winemaker Clive Otto for his newly commissioned state-of-the-art winery at Fraser Gallop Estate in Margaret River.
Mr Otto flew out of Perth this week to join Amisfield Estate in central Otago, New Zealand, and will join Fraser Gallop Estate in Wilyabrup’s Metricup Road in July this year.
The new, 200-tonne capacity winery, to be designed by Architect Robert Cann and built at a cost of $2 million, is scheduled to be ready for the 2007 vintage. At this stage there are no plans for it to include a restaurant or cellar door.
In November last year, an unemployed Mr Otto was named Australian winemaker of the year by WineState magazine after suddenly being made redundant by the Holmes a Court family, owners of Margaret River’s Vasse Felix winery, after 16 vintages there.
His Vasse Felix 2001 Heytesbury cabernet sauvignon was named wine of the year ahead of 10,000 others and his wines have won 134 gold medals, 160 silver and 70 trophies at local, national and international events.
Mr Gallop, who made a fortune from the Ultradata Corp financial computer services company he co-founded in 1977 and sold out of in 1996, said Mr Otto’s appointment would move Fraser Gallop Estate to the next level of premium producers.
“Clive brings tremendous experience but also a depth of knowledge which provides the winery and vineyard inputs, which are going to lead us to making better quality decisions,” Mr Gallop said.
Mr Otto said a number of factors attracted him to the picturesque 16-hectare vineyard, which was planted in 1998, had its first vintage in 2002 and includes among its neighbours such premium producers as Cullen, Moss Wood and Vasse Felix
“It has taken the region 37 years to understand which varieties grow best in each sub-region of Margaret River and this property has given itself the best possible chance to succeed by choosing the region’s signature varieties of cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay,” Mr Otto told WA Business News.
“The prospect of making two exceptional wines each vintage from dry grown, low yield, hand picked and estate-owned fruit appeals to me.”
Mr Gallop left his Perth home in 1989 to work in the US, during which time Ultradata, a major partner to the Asia Pacific financial services industry, was listed on Nasdaq. In 1996, he sold out of Ultradata Australia, moved back to Perth in 1998 and bought the Metricup Road property in 1998.
