Wine writer RICHARD CALVER discovers that winemaker Ken Helm’s daughter Stephanie really knows her stuff when it comes to making wine, too. 

DON’T you love father/daughter interactions? My teenage daughter came home in a rage. 

“I’ve just had sex education in school today, dad! You lied to me! You told me if I have sex before my sixteenth birthday my boyfriend will die!” 

I put down my paper: “Oh, he will sweetheart, he will.”

Similar interactions that stand out relate to the passing on of knowledge and expertise. 

Ken Helm was exemplary in the skills he taught his daughter, Stephanie. Together with her husband Ben Osborne in 2014 she established a winery that demonstrates those skills and a family talent. 

Sparked by a narrative that Ken gave when we visited his winery, we searched for some Vintner’s Daughter wines in a number of outlets. But unable to obtain any, my mate Tom and I made the trip to Murrumbateman to meet Stephanie and to taste her wines. 

It was a worthwhile experience with nary a drop we didn’t like. And the first question posed was why couldn’t we get any of the wines at retail?

“Well, we only produce between 10,000 and 30,000 bottles a year, all of which are sold through our wine club and at the cellar door,” she said. 

“We supplied some wine to Canberra restaurants but that didn’t happen in 2020 because of the loss of fruit to smoke taint and it hasn’t taken off since.”

The next question was: “Yes, well the district has had a number of disasters. Were you affected by the January hail that wiped out a lot of your father’s crop?”

“No, we dodged a bullet,” she said.

“The micro-climate here changes between vineyards. But there was another hailstorm in late January, not the big one, where luckily only a few bunches were lost.”

There was not only the difference in climate that distinguished Stephanie’s wines from her father’s.

“Terroir speaks. We struggle to find a rock. But dad has fossils,” she said.

I bit my tongue at the fossil analogy.

The difference in terroir translated to the difference between her father’s riesling and Stephanie’s Estate Riesling 2022. This wine has an engaging peach stone flavour, a flintiness or minerality that brings depth to a young wine. The acid is less than in the equivalent from her father’s production, a difference to be celebrated.

Unhappily, the Gewurztraminer, next tasted, is available only to the lucky wine club members. Aromatic it was; a lovely bouquet of lychee and spice. Despite its sweet tones, it finished cleanly. 

In the past, I have been lucky enough to taste this varietal grown in Alsace and, as Stephanie remarked, it resembled that style of wine (from the name you might have guessed that this is a German origin wine, just like riesling). 

The grape does best in a cool climate, something that was evident on our day of visit. Stephanie said that this wine is a good seller, unlike when it was first marketed.

“If they couldn’t pronounce it, they wouldn’t go near it,” she said. 

Bravo for trend setting.

We also tried the riesling that Stephanie calls her semi-sweet. Hang on, I thought, this wine emulates the Helm half-dry. He says potato she says potarto! 

It is a great food wine, especially for Asian food as the sweetness diffuses some of the heat and spice. 

The rosé was next and is the most popular of Stephanie’s wines. I bought two bottles. It is a blend of shiraz, sangiovese and merlot grapes with the colour coming from a quick crush and also being pressed quickly but with no skin contact. 

It is not wishy washy, as some rosés are, given the fact that you can call any pink concoction a rosé in this country. 

The pinot noir and the syrah are also highly recommended.

We bow to the passing of knowledge represented in this fine winemaking.