AN award winning ad that doesn’t sell anything, a critically acclaimed production that doesn’t put bums on seats. Well no-one is suggesting that ailing Evans & Tate’s wines don’t sell, but there has to be some irony in the fact that within a week of winning the prestigious Sheraton Perth Wine Award, the company has finally succumbed to having the administrators officially put in place. The Note couldn’t help but shake its head as E&T won the Chairman’s Award for the best individual entry for its 2005 chardonnay at the Sheraton awards and shared the Most Successful Exhibitor Award with Ferngrove Vineyards Estate and Brookland Valley. The award came five days after Franklin Tate quit as a director of the company. He was the son of its founders and ran it for more than a decade, including instituting a chardonnay project to try to elevate the company’s white production to a class of just a few wineries in the world.
