Prue Henschke of Henschke Wines represents the pinnacle of viticulture in Australia, according to National Wine Communicators of Australia (WCA) Executive Chairman Angus Barnes.
Prue was named the 2024 South Australian Legend of the Vine in front of many of her wine industry associates and colleagues at the Wine Communicators of Australia Royal Adelaide Wine and Spirits Show Trophy Winners Lunch a few months back.
Barnes says, “[Prue’s] influence has reached cool-climate vineyards across the country, and she is passionate about protecting the natural environment while growing grapes good enough to create Australia’s best wine.”
The Award recognises those who have made an outstanding contribution to the Australian wine industry and who embody the WCA maxim of ‘Engage, Connect, Develop and Inspire’. Award winners are individuals who have led by example and have added their own skilled and distinctive voice to the Australian wine story.
Prue joined her husband Stephen’s family business via the cellar door, and together they took over the winery in 1979 – but the initiation wasn’t easy. It began with the purchase of an orchard, with the intention of swapping the apples and cherries for grapes.
Prue says the life of an orchardist wasn’t easy, but once the vines started coming, she got to work putting her acquired knowledge into practice.
One of Prue’s great contributions to the Australian wine industry has been her insistence on improving the health of the soil, which all came about when she was planning a family break.
“We were sitting down with the kids one day and wanted to go for an Easter holiday,” she says. “We needed to finish vintage first and then we could go camping, so I worked out the Easter dates and looked back at our harvest dates and every time, [iconic Henschke wine] Hill of Grace was being harvested at the same time as Easter fell.
“I thought, ‘There’s something uncanny about the lunar cycles controlling vintage.”
Prue turned to biodynamic principles and started reading all she could, having found this pattern.
Then, the winery had stalks and skins that needed to be disposed of and she thought, surely, they could be turned into compost?
She went and learned how to do just that, put it into practice and it worked “sensationally well”.
Drive around the famous Barossa (one of 18 wine regions on the doorstep of Adelaide, South Australia), or most wine regions for that matter, and you’ll see roses planted at the end of the rows of vines. Their job is to attract pests toward them, and away from the vines. At the very least, to serve as an early warning sign that aphids and other bugs are about.
Pretty as roses may be, Prue began to question their use. “I thought, we must have some better plants. Why aren’t we using natives?
“I’d been studying the local vegetation for ages and I went through my list and sorted out what flowered in spring and narrowed it to what wasps would like.
“People had been ripping out blue gums because of their expansive root system competing with their new vineyards. Little did they know it was going to be an important supplier of nectar for their beneficial insects.
“I came across one particular species, Bursaria spinosa, that grows across south-eastern Australia.
“If you watch it during spring, it flowers pretty well just before the vine flowers and it continues right through to Christmas time. Watching the bush, you’ll see that it’s full of insects. I started growing it at the end of the rows, as it attracts wasps which then parasitise the light brown apple moth that feeds on our shoots and newly forming bunches.”
In the days that Prue was experimenting with things such as natives, lunar cycles and biodynamics, it was all seen as a bit far-fetched.
“The public perception is about weird concoctions. Everybody thought it was a bit voodoo, but it’s nothing like that. It’s quite practical and easy to do.”
Prue has won numerous awards as both a winemaker and a viticulturist. In 2016 she was named Viticulturist of the Year at the Australian Women in Wine Awards and last year was named as the inaugural inductee in the James Halliday Hall of Fame (Australian Wine Industry).
This article has been adapted with kind permission from the SALIFE article Nurturing Nature.
Photos care of the Henschke family. Photo credit: Duy Dash.