Balancing Heart: Halliday’s Dark Horse, and a first for Queensland

“As soon as you put Q-L-D after a bottle of wine, people are very sceptical.”

Mike Hayes, winemaker at Balancing Heart, speaking to Halliday

Anyone who makes or pours Queensland wine knows that scepticism. This year, Halliday answered it.

Balancing Heart sits in the Granite Belt, high country with what Mike describes as “quite a continental climate”. By his estimate the region now grows around 100 grape varieties, and he reckons that makes it the most diverse wine region in the country. “We’re not geared up by tradition,” he told Halliday, “so we’re able to let our hair run free.”

Halliday describes Balancing Heart’s wines as textural whites, medium-weight reds, skin-contact and sparkling wines, and lesser-known varieties, under names like Niche & Montage and Muse & Epoque. Each name pairs a science word with an art word, because to Mike that is what winemaking is. According to Halliday’s Dark Horse write-up, the winery uses no oak, insecticides, chemical fertilisers, added acid or tannin. “Mother Nature and Mother Earth are the best winemaker and viticulturist on the planet,” he says. “We’re merely gatekeepers.”

In August, the 2027 Halliday Wine Companion named Balancing Heart its Dark Horse Winery. Halliday gives the award to wineries that are not as commonly talked about as they should be, yet are wildly deserving of recognition, and called Balancing Heart “one of the worthiest explorations of fine and unique wine in Australia”. It is the first time a Queensland winery has won one of the Companion’s major awards.

And the Granite Belt was not finished. Ballandean Estate Wines’ Saperavi 2023 was named Wildcard Red of the Year, so two of the region’s wineries were recognised in the same awards.

This matters for all of Queensland wine. It is recognition on the national stage for what our growers and makers have known all along.

Congratulations to Mike and the whole Balancing Heart team, and to everyone at Ballandean Estate. We hope this is the first of many such accolades for both, and we look forward to toasting the next ones. Here’s to the continued success of Queensland wine.

Read Halliday’s full Dark Horse write-up