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Food

Feeling Good With Kooks The Generous Wine Co.

Kooks is a burgeoning wine company with a difference - it gives away 50% of its profits to "good doers" as part of its positively generous ethos. Celebrating generosity is not a value you often see in the corporate world. As a "corporate" myself I find Kooks to be a breath of fresh air. Some of the projects supported by Kooks are charities, while others are quirky capers.

The World Loves Melbourne visited the Kooks office (above Chin Chin) and spent some time with Chris Tucker, Director Marketing, one of the drivers of Kooks (along with Alec Law and Jamie Hughes). Chris is as serious about the "feel good" factor as he is about the wine. This business has a sense of adventure as the team identify projects to support and immerse themselves in community life. 

The wine itself is excellent. Kooks boasts a fine Barossa Shiraz with high 92 points from the Dan Murphy Panel, as well as its current Chardonnay. The World Loves Melbourne sampled a bottle of Kooks Shiraz - a rich, generous and full-bodied wine with a deepish red purple colour, created from a premium blend of Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra fruit.

Crafted by champion young winemaker Brie Hughes, the red features both intense fruit flavours and smooth texture, great for enjoying now or sharing with friends. Fruit driven, smoky, dried spice and char-oak aromas delight, and for under $15 this is a great bang for buck. Sold in Dan Murphys the Kooks wine is easily accessible. 

A coup for Kooks has been the relationship with Jetstar, who share the love, having supplied over 150,000 bottles of Kooks on their flights. Look out for them!

The World Loves Melbourne enjoyed imbibing Kooks Shiraz on a sunny Melbourne afternoon. We loved the wine for its depth, plump berry flavours and balance across the palate, and are gripped by the Kooks story.

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Kooks boasts champion winemaker Brie Hughes who was born into a Victorian winemaking family and followed in her father’s footsteps, studying winemaking at Adelaide University. Brie went on to gain valuable experience with some of Australia and New Zealand’s best wineries including Hardy’s Tintara in McLaren Vale and Bay of Fires in Tasmania. She has also worked in New Zealand as white winemaker for Saint Clair Family Estate.

Brie is adept with making Shiraz from South Australian grapes and also (mainly from her experience in New Zealand) she is superb at producing cracker whites (fruit from Victoria's Yarra Valley).

Being familair with charity and companies who support projects, I was keen to find out exactly what projects Kooks supported. Were they "typical" projects a corporate might support? From certain predictable genres? Well, I discovered that Kooks has wide vision and supports projects that other companies may not. One of the more well known projects supported by Kooks is Tram Sessions.

The Tram Sessions project was instigated by Melbourne music lover Ashleigh Hills and has grown to become a serious attraction on certain trams in Melbourne. Kooks is the major sponsor of Tram Sessions, which has included performances on trams by major artists Jabuki (check out the You Tube clip above), Passenger, Eskimo Joe, The Basics, Xavier Rudd, Vance Joy, Paul Kelly and Dan Kelly, Eliza Hull and Josh Pyke.

When you drink Kooks wines you are drinking with a "feel good" factor, knowing 50% of profits go to "feel good" projects. And that's good drinking!