Vine Whisperer and Bookkeeper: Sally Belford
HER NAME
SALLY
MAKES SIPS AT
BOBAR WINES
If there’s any way to describe Sally and her life, it’s: busy. Let’s break it down for you: She designs the (fucking cool) wine labels, she makes sure they have the receipts (also commonly known as “bookkeeping”), and according to her husband Tom, she’s the “vine whisperer”. Oh, how could we forget - she also makes Bobar’s delectable sips. Apart from current life being busy, Sally’s past life was much the same: She met Tom while they were both studying Viticulture and were married with two kids by the time they graduated. We told you - busy, huh?
There were many surprising moments for us when we chatted to Sally - one of them being that the toughest part of her job would be doing the BAS (Business Activity Statement - see, we told you she’s a bookkeeper) and that her career highlight is having built a shed on her property where she lives, so she can keep everything right at home. She’s still yet to do a vintage with said shed, so we love the fact that this is a still-yet-to-happen highlight.
Sally and Tom believe grapes are perfect to make wine just the way they are: Nothing added and nothing taken away. How stunning is that?! And Bobar wines really are stunning. Stunningly interesting, complex and stupidly easy to drink.
“When we were in Bordeaux, we went out with some friends who are French and they took us to this natural wine bar. It was called Le Bobar, meaning, “the beautiful bar”. Bobar actually means to tell a white lie, so it's this total play on words. It didn't really mean anything to us. We just thought oh, “Bobar”, you can say that with an Aussie accent!”
SIP'ER: What's your key role within Bobar? Is there anyone else that leads it with you?
SALLY: Okay, so my key role would be winemaker. Tom has described me to other people as the "vine whisperer" - when it comes to choosing the picking date, I'm the one that goes in. And so that's probably my number one role - is deciding the picking date. We very much share what we do in the winery - we work really well together like that. We're very different in the way that we approach things, but we complement each other. I probably do a lot more of the label design.
SIP'ER: Something we love is the fabric labels - how did you do that?! It's really interesting.
SALLY: Well, when you're given the parameters of ‘it has to be black and white’, it really just has to have patterns. And our actual font for the Bobar brand is Art Deco style. So I just do Google searches on Art Deco - artists and stuff, and something will just jump out, and I’ve got a little scrapbook full of bits and pieces that I draw on. So that's how they all come about. So, key roles... We've got the vine whisperer, we've got the label design... And of course, there's the bookkeeping aspect that says you have the receipt.
SIP'ER (JENNY): Oh, that’s one of my key roles as well within SIP'ER! I'm the “keeper of the finances” and I just think, “I need help with this!!”. It’s a tough job to have.
SALLY: [laughs] So they're probably the top three jobs for me. And then everything else is shared. Tom goes and approaches growers a little bit more than I, mainly because Tom grew up in Yarra Glen, so he knows a lot of the growers and he has history with them.
SIP'ER: How did you and Tom start Bobar?
SALLY: We met at uni when we were studying viticulture. We studied viticulture, because we both believe that wine starts with the vine. So we hit it off straight away, and had the dream of owning our own vineyard. And by the time that we finished our degree, we were married with two children.
SIP'ER: Oh my gosh - that was quick!
SALLY: Well it took like six years to finish that. We got married and had babies while I was studying. So yeah, it was insane. And then after we finished studying, we basically sold the car and packed everything up, and we went to France for 15 months. And that's where the idea of Bobar came from.
SIP'ER: What inspired that on the trip?
SALLY: We went to France and went to Beaujolais, and we just drank lots of Gamay. And we had one of the best vintages we've ever had in our lives - it was so much fun. It was just a party every day. From smoko on, you were drinking. [laughs]
SIP’ER: [laughs] That sounds amazing!
SALLY: And the actual name Bobar... When we were in Bordeaux, we went out with some friends who are French and they took us to this natural wine bar. It was called Le Bobar, meaning, “the beautiful bar”. Bobar actually means to tell a white lie, so it's this total play on words. It didn't really mean anything to us. We just thought oh, “Bobar”, you can say that with an Aussie accent!
SIP'ER: We love the thought of “can you say it with an Australian accent?”
SIP’ER: What's your career highlight been? And can you pair one of your wines with this moment?
SALLY: It would be the fact that we've just built our own shed in the last couple of months, and we now have a shed on the property where we live. And we can keep everything right here at home. We have yet to do our first vintage in the shed. But I think the highlight is that we’ll have the shed during vintage - we just haven't quite got there yet!
SIP'ER: So more like a prospective highlight!
SALLY: Exactly! We’ve also just made our first commercial quantity of wine off our own grapes at home. It's only a small vineyard, it's about half an acre of Cabernet Sauvignon. We planted that, I don't know, so long ago... 12 years ago or something. But it took a long time for it to establish and lots of re-planting because it's not irrigated, and we had bushfires and frosts and lots of things. And last year was the first year that we actually were able to have enough to put into a barrel. So we'll be able to release that this year.
SIP'ER: So you’d pair that kind of career highlight with the Cab Sauv that's coming out?
SALLY: Yeah, absolutely. 2022 is gonna be a big one!
SIP'ER: What’s the toughest part of your job that not many people would know about? And what do you feel like drinking after a day of doing that?
SALLY: I feel like saying… doing the BAS (Business Activity Statement) every quarter. A stiff drink feels really good after that. I'll stick with that - doing the BAS. You’ve gotta do it. And it's only gonna take half a day, but it's so hard to get motivated.
SIP'ER: What is your favourite wine you produce and why is it your favourite?
SALLY: Oh, god, that's like saying to choose your favourite child.
SIP'ER: I know. It is!
SALLY: Okay, um... we've only made this one once, and it's still quite special to me. It's the Gamma Ray. And it's my favourite because we just happened to be able to get some Gamay fruit off this vineyard, which we've been eyeing off for a little while so we were really lucky to get it. There were actually these three clones of Gamay on that vineyard and we separated each clone and fermented each one separately so we were able to see the different clonal characteristics. Then we just blended them all together and made Gamma Ray. It was a fantastic experience to be able to do that. We weren't able to get the fruit the following year, so that's that!
SIP'ER: Have you got a bottle hiding away still?!
SALLY: The vineyard is still there, so we were hoping that one day we'll be able to do it again. But it doesn't matter because we made the Gamma Ray, and it was a great wine. It took a lot of risk doing that too. We ended up making this one which was really light in colour and it was just that moment of like, “Ah shit!”, you know, it's too light. But it still packed a punch on the palate - it was really good. So yeah, a lot of risk-taking, and we didn't know what the hell we were doing but it turned out okay!
SIP'ER: That sounds so interesting. Well, I hope I can drink it one day! What wine brings the most joy and happy memories, and are there any interesting stories behind those?
SALLY: Of Bobar wines or any wine?
SIP'ER: I mean, any wine really.
SALLY: I'll say this one because I was talking about it only two nights ago with Tom... And it's a Champagne - the Larmandier-Bernier. It's their Blanc de Blancs. When we were in France, the first place we worked was Champagne. We were actually a little bit disheartened by Champagne because it's really commercialised and they get away with doing some not very good things to the wine because they are Champagne. And it wasn't until the last few days we were there that we discovered a biodynamic Champagne vineyard. And they were the loveliest people. So to be able to meet a really small Champagne maker, who sat down with us on a weekend and took us through their range and told us about the vineyard, we're like, “Oh my god, Champagne’s all right!”. So that’s a really special moment for me and in my world of wine. So even if you think of the worst of a region, there'll be someone in there doing something amazing.
SIP'ER: What do you want people to take away from the experience after drinking Bobar wines?
SALLY: The main thing I want them to take away is that they had fun and opened their minds a little bit. It makes them curious.
SIP'ER: Well, we definitely feel like that's what we take from a lot of your wines, they’re wines that we’ve never really tasted before. The Fanny Finch is one of our absolute favourites, it's just so unexpected. We also love the name. And then, of course, the labels.
SALLY: Have you Googled her story? She worked in the gold fields out in Castlemaine in the late 1800s. She was a woman of colour from England and she came out here as a child as an orphan. And she'd had four children to four different men, she ran a corner store in the gold fields, she was also a sex worker - truly a woman of survival. Imagine being a woman of colour in that day and age.
SIP'ER: That’s so interesting - love that wine even more now.
SALLY: Just the tip of the hat to a really strong woman, you know. Then whenever I find a great story about a woman in the world, who's done something amazing, I like to give a bit of a tip of the hat.
SIP'ER: If you had to match one of your products with your personality, which would it be and why?
SALLY: Oh, god, my personality changes... Ah, maybe if I just think of today. I think today, I would probably go for a go for the 2019 Cabaret, because one thing I really love about carbonic maceration is that you can it looks so light in when you look at it in the glass, and you go, “Oh, this is just gonna be such like an easy drink.” And you're not going to have to think about it with this one. But when you use carbonic maceration on these grapes, it opens up so many more complexities. So you might get something that looks quite ‘happy go lucky’ on the outside, but once you drink it, it's gonna make you think. And that's how I'm feeling today.