Lucas Estate

Lucas Estate had a really successful show down in NSW, the New England Wine Show. We came away with 5 Bronze, 2 Silver, 3 Gold and 2 Trophies, including the Champion Wine of the Show. The Champion wine was the 2009 Estate Chardonnay with the other 2 Golds were won by the 2008 Gordon Shiraz and the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon.

It's good to know that the 2005 wines are holding up so well as I am about to put together a special dozen for Christmas...look out for details soon!

NEW Bacchus Wine Club!

Below are links for 2 x PDFs, one gives a full list of the wines available to members in the first mailing and the other is the membership application form that also outlines all the membership options.

You have a choice of signing up from 4 bottles every 3 months to 12 bottles every 2 months, with various options in between.

The first delivery does not follow the standard percentage based savings.. because it is both Christmas and our introductory delivery so we though it should be something pretty special, ie valuable to prospective members. If you look at the savings we are offering they really are too good to miss.

You can save anything up to $151 on just this first delivery!

Please fill out your form and get back to us so that we can get your wine away in the post in plenty of time for Christmas.

Our next delivery will be in January 2011, for both 2 and 3 month deliveries.. just so that it is easy for us to follow through in the Calendar Year.

I am about to get the next lot of labelling done and the last lot of bottling of the 2009 vintage so there will be some great pre-release wine out to Bacchus Club Members, as well as access to our current wines with excellent savings.

Launch of Sparkling Wines and Opening of New Cellar Door Louise Samuel

It was party time at Lucas Estate on Thursday, July 27 2010 when over 70 guests celebrated the opening of the new Cellar Door and the launch of the Estate’s first Sparkling Wines. The guests were able to sample both the drier Sparkling Chardonnay and the slightly sweeter Sparkling Rosé. Both wines were very well received with the Rosé just taking the edge in popularity.

The owner and wine maker at Lucas Estate, Louise Samuel (pictured at right), gave a short speech to thank all those who helped with the production of the sparkling wines and also to explain the milestone of the completion of the new Cellar Door. Since their arrival in the Granite Belt in 2003 Louise and her late husband, Colin Sellers, have expanded Lucas Estate’s winery and tourism facilities. They extended the original cellar door (which will now be purely an eating area), built climate controlled wine storage areas and built a state of the art new winery. After losing her husband in 2008 Louise continued on to complete the dream with the building of a private tasting room and art studio and then the conversion of the old winery to the new Cellar Door. The opening marks the completion of the original dream and confirms that Louise will continue to move forward with new initiatives in winemaking and tourism.

Colin’s brothers, Ian and Alan, and sister in law Toni, travelled up from NSW for the opening and the wine launch and to offer their support. Louise took over the wine making from Colin and has been very successful with her wines, including winning the Award for Technical Excellence in Queensland Winemaking and the Dick De Luca Trophy for Best Queensland Shiraz at the last Australian Small Winemakers Show in 2009. The Sellers family are very proud that the winery has continued to epitomise winemaking excellence and Louise is very happy to have them involved with her venture… middle brother Alan is most likely the oldest person to have earnt the title “Junior Winemaker”!

The sparkling wines are available from the cellar door at $27.50 per bottle (special prices apply to multiple bottle buys) and will hopefully be in restaurants in the near future.

Australian Small Winemaker’s Show: Just Stunning

GOLD: 2008 Estate Shiraz
GOLD: 2008 Petit Verdot
The Dick De Luca TROPHY: Queensland’s Best Shiraz
AWARD: Technical Excellence in Queensland Winemaking
BRONZE: 2007 Estate Shiraz
BRONZE: 2008 Merlot

Lucas Estate had already won 10 Gold Medals since 2005, so we consider our wine has a good reputation, but the last three years have been tough times with the lowest point being the loss of Colin to cancer in June 2008.

Louise has since carried on the business, including the wine making, with the aim of maintaining the quality of both the wine and the service to all our customers.

All things considering it didn’t seem realistic to expect much in the way of awards this year. The wines were submitted to the show in order to receive an objective report and hopefully not show up any faults. To win Trophies and Golds was just spectacular and totally stunned Louise. Our team of girls is incredibly proud, as are the token male, Muscat, and Alan - our indispensable itinerant ‘Junior’ Winemaker.

The Petit Verdot is available from the Cellar Door ($32) but the 2008 Shiraz is not yet released. The 2005 Gordon and the 2006 Estate are available for sale.