Christopher Barrett, owner of Pomegrandeur Wines. Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
Who are you and what is your business? My name is Chris [Christopher Barrett], and we’re [Pomegrandeur] in Vincent Road, Lake Albert. If you’ve been down there, you might have seen 50 pomegranate trees. We grow the fruit there, and two years ago, we started making our own wine.
Where did you begin? I planted the trees nearly 15 years ago because I love pomegranate and we’ve been perfecting our juice since. With every year that came and went, we thought, one day, we’ve got to make wine out of this and two years ago we did. We’ve done recipes and have the three best out of those.
What do you produce? We’ve got a brewed mulled version of wine (called the X). It’s like Christmas in a bottle. The V is a very sweet dessert wine. The S is a sweet wine but does not quite have the same sugar content. There’s a little bit more acidity and slightly drier.
At the moment, we are trialling a grapefruit wine and will also probably trial a strawberry wine. Hopefully, we’ll have those one day.
What do you sell that makes a great gift? Our most popular one is the X, which is like Christmas in a bottle, and people have been buying those as gifts.
Pomegrandeur’s most popular wine, X, is “like Christmas in a bottle”. Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
What would you make if you could do anything? Retire and take our little camper van with plenty of wine bottles in the back and go to the markets along the coast. That’s an idea we are toying with.
How would you promote the Riverina? It’s a good spot locally. My wife teaches piano and she loves it for the culture. There are a lot of musical people here, and some towns don’t have that culture of music.
Pomegrandeur is based in Lake Albert. Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
Coolest local thing you’ve ever bought? Two weeks ago, my wife bought a table runner with artwork of sketched birds, and that was pretty cool.
Where’s your favourite place for a cuppa? I don’t go out for coffee very often. We’ve gone to the little restaurant on the main drag down Fitzmaurice Street once, and that was pretty good. We walked on the riverfront and dropped down to a little coffee/tea shop [Mr Lawrence] there. That was great, too.
Who is another local producer you admire? Ten Thousand Harvests, with their microgreens, are excellent.
Learn more about Pomegrandeur Wines via their website.
Region Riverina is committed to celebrating our local producers and creatives and encourages everyone to buy local.
If you’re aware of someone who’s making something amazing, let us know!
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