Henschke – Mount Edelstone Vineyard, Eden Valley Prue Henschke

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  • Henschke – Mount Edelstone Vineyard, Eden Valley

    Planted in 1912 by Ronald Angas – a descendant of one of South Australia’s founding families – the Mount Edelstone Vineyard is home to 114-year-old centenarian shiraz vines that are, by any measure, among the most significant in the country. Situated in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges at 400 to 600 metres elevation, the 16.76-hectare Eden Valley site produces a single wine: Mount Edelstone Shiraz, one of the longest consecutively produced single-vineyard wines in Australia, with the current 2022 release marking its 70th vintage. At its heart is a grape-growing philosophy built on organic and biodynamic principles (not certified), guided for the past four decades by viticulturist and botanist Prue Henschke. Working with deep, mineral-rich red clay soils and the site’s naturally high-vigour old vines, Henschke has steadily transformed the vineyard’s health and fruit quality through a layered program of regenerative farming, native biodiversity, and meticulous vine selection – all in service of a wine whose character is inseparable from the ground it grows in.

  • Grosset – Springvale Vineyard, Clare Valley

    The Grosset Springvale Vineyard is a 6.12-hectare riesling site within the larger 17-hectare Watervale vineyard in the Clare Valley’s Watervale subregion – chosen purely on the basis of geology, altitude, elevation and aspect, and dedicated entirely to riesling across three clones and five blocks. What makes Springvale distinct, even within the Watervale subregion, is an unusual geological layering: red-brown clay over limestone over friable gradational clay loam, with blue slate lying approximately 3 metres below the surface – a formation unique to this site, and one that was not fully understood until after the vines were in the ground. Planted between 2000 and 2003 at 450 to 470 metres elevation – among the highest sites in Watervale – and certified organic (2014) and biodynamic (2019) by Australian Certified Organics, the vineyard is managed by Matthew O’Rourke, who has worked the site since 2011. The Grosset Springvale Riesling sells out annually and is among the most collected wines in Australia.

  • G.K.L.R. Vineyard, Heathcote

    G.K.L.R. Vineyard is a 32-hectare property on the Mount Camel Range in Victoria’s Heathcote region, planted from 2018 across four successive stages by Gerard Kennedy and his wife Lucy, with Barney Tuohey as co-grower. The site grows shiraz, fiano, sangiovese, nero d’avola, nebbiolo and, most recently, piederosso – varieties chosen with a clear eye on climate resilience and the particular character of some of the most geologically distinctive soils in the region. Kennedy came to viticulture as a trained geologist, and the rigour of that background is visible in how the vineyard was designed, planted and is managed: with a precision that operates at the level of the individual row. Being a young vineyard, the business model during these formative years is to sell the majority of fruit to other winemakers – a roster that includes Adam Foster, Ben Ranken, Sierra Reed, Simon Osicka, Adrian Santolin and others – while building the GKLR label alongside, with a range that currently includes a Sparkling Rosé, Fiano, Nero d’Avola, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo and Shiraz.

  • Denton View Hill Vineyard, Yarra Valley

    View Hill is one of the Yarra Valley’s most distinctive vineyards – thirty hectares of vines planted on sixty hectares of steep, hilly land. Blocks here stretch across ridgelines and slopes, part of a complex matrix of aspects, elevations, and exposures. Underneath, the soil is just as complex, with a patchwork of granitic soils run through with substrates of granodiorite, siltstone, and ancient marine sandstone streaked with limestone. On this unique site the Denton Wine team, lead by viticulturist Julian Parrott, focus on chardonnay, pinot noir, and nebbiolo, with small parcels of cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, and ribolla gialla rounding out the mix. The fruit from these vines not only goes into the Denton Wines range, but also a roster of some of the Yarra’s best makers, including Luke Lambert, Mac Forbes, Thick as Thieves, Rob Hall, Oakridge, and Tilly J Wines.

  • Delatite Vineyard, Upper Goulburn

    The journey of Delatite’s estate vineyard, nestled amongst the foothills of the Victorian Alps in the cool-climate region of Upper Goulburn, is one that mirrors the changes in Australian viticulture over the last half-century. Planted in 1968 – at what was likely to have been Australia’s coldest vineyard site at the time – the vineyard has since seen the varietal mix change, plantings expand, ecologically-sound practices adopted, and viticultural changes made to adapt to an ever-changing climate and the threat of phylloxera. Australian winegrowing has come a long way since the ’60s, baby – and the current state of play at Delatite shows just how far.

  • Commune of Buttons – Fernglen Vineyard, Piccadilly Valley

    Jasper Button’s journey is, in many ways, an archetype for many others who were formerly lumped into the category of ‘natural winemakers’. That cultural moment arrived in the early 2010s, generated a lot of buzz online – not to mention sometimes harsh criticism from the vinous establishment – and turned a generation of young Australians on to the delights of wine. But what happens after the both hype and the hatred dissipates? For Jasper and his sister Sophie, what’s next is about going back to basics – and the current incarnation of the Commune of Buttons project is all about celebrating the birthplace of the project, Fernglen. Here Jasper tends to four hectares of pinot noir, chardonnay, gamay, chenin blanc, nebbiolo, and cabernet franc, nestled amongst twenty-eight hectares of rolling hills and bushland in the Piccadilly Valley sub-region of the Adelaide Hills.

  • Clonakilla Vineyard, Canberra District

    Clonakilla is one of Australia’s most significant wine estates and the founding vineyard of the Canberra District, planted in 1971 by Dr John Kirk AM and today managed by his son Tim Kirk. The 19-hectare property at Murrumbateman – 600 metres above sea level, 40 kilometres north of Canberra – grows shiraz, viognier, riesling, pinot noir, grenache, mourvedre, cinsault, roussanne and several Bordeaux varieties on sandy clay loams over decomposed granitic subsoil, in a cool continental climate defined by warm days, cold nights and a long ripening season. The estate’s flagship shiraz viognier, first made in 1992, is widely regarded as one of the great Australian reds and the wine that established the shiraz-viognier co-fermentation as a serious mode of expression in this country.

  • Circulus Wine – Coatsworth Vineyard, Geelong

    Coatsworth Vineyard is an 8.3-hectare property on the Bellarine Peninsula, acquired in 2021 by John White – a former corporate financier turned passionate viticulturist – and home to the Circulus Wine label. Planted from 1997 and progressively reworked since White’s arrival, the site grows chardonnay, pinot noir, shiraz, cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc and, most recently, chenin blanc, on a geologically distinctive mix of sandy loam, clay-basalt and exposed limestone that sets it apart from much of the wider Bellarine. Surrounded by the cooling influence of Corio Bay, Port Phillip Bay and Bass Strait, the maritime amphitheatre produces grapes of natural freshness and saline, oyster-shell minerality – characters that have long made the site’s fruit sought after by neighbouring producers including Provenance Wines, Mulline and Bellbrae Estate. As White steadily expands the Circulus range – chardonnay, pinot noir, shiraz, cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc fumé and rosé, all at $35–$49 – the fruit he sells to others bears witness to the same philosophy underpinning his own wines: elegant, cool-climate expressions with texture, restraint and a clear sense of place, grown under a rigorous regenerative farming approach that has transformed the property from a run-down farm into one of the Bellarine’s most progressive viticultural operations.

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Circulus Wine – Coatsworth Vineyard, Geelong

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