Trevor Mast – a winemaking life cut cruelly short

Yesterday I read about Trevor Mast’s sudden death. I knew he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimers some 5 or 6 years ago. His slow fading away must’ve been so painful to watch for his wife and four daughters, the inspiration for Trevor’s 4 sisters label.

Photo courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald

An article in the Age last year said: ‘About three months ago, Mr Mast lost his taste for wine. It was the latest in a five-year-long series of disconnections from one of the things he loved most. A year or two ago he lost his critical faculties for wine, and about three years before that his mastery of the winemaking process slipped away. He simply forgot how to make it.’

The rest of the story is here, and it’s very sad.

I met Trevor in the early eighties, on a discovery tour of Victorian wineries with my late wife. He was then making wine at Bests, and gave us 2 bottles of a bubbly he was very proud of to take with us. He was a man of few words, but clearly in his element. He went on to make wine at Mount Langi Ghiran (Aboriginal for home of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo) in the nearby Grampians.

The isolated vineyard set on rugged terrain was first planted in 1870, and was replanted by the Frantin brothers in 1963. Trevor Mast became their consultant winemaker in the late seventies and, a decade later, he and wife Sandra Mast bought the place. In 2002 the property was bought by the Rathbone family, but is for sale again at the time of writing – along with Yering Station, Parker Coonawarra Estate and Xanadu.

Trevor learnt all about viticulture and winemaking in Geisenheim in the early 1970’s, then worked for Stellenbosch in South Africa for a while before returning to Australia to work at Sepplets and then at Bests Great Western. Mount Langi Shiraz today stands tall alongside our greatest reds.