Victoria Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Pipan Steel Vineyard, Alpine Valleys

The Pipan Steel Vineyard is the result of a dedicated quest to find the perfect site for nebbiolo in Australia. Paula Pipan and Radley Steel caught the bug for nebbiolo through tasting Barolo and other Piedmontese examples, then searched across the length and breadth of Australia’s winegrowing regions for the perfect site to grow this famously finicky variety. The half-hectare vineyard they now call home, in the Alpine Valleys region of Victoria, is ideally suited for nebbiolo – at 400 meters elevation, bathed in fog throughout winter, and with high diurnal temperature range, its climate frequently mirrors that of Barolo. As you might expect, nebbiolo is the only variety grown here, in the form of three separate clones – each chosen for their contrasting qualities.

Mount Towrong Vineyard, Macedon Ranges

Mount Towrong’s estate vineyard, perched at 600 meters amongst the foothills of Mount Macedon, offers a rare sight in Australian viticulture – terraces cut into the side of the slope. Founded in 1996 by George and Deirdre Cremasco, those terraces were originally intended as a nod to George’s Venetian heritage – specifically the rolling hillside vineyards of Soave, Valpolicella, and Conegliano–Valdobbiadene. But as Mount Towrong’s current viticulturist Adam Paleg can attest, the benefits of this intervention into the landscape go far beyond its cultural resonances: the vineyard’s two and a half–hectare patchwork of chardonnay, pinot noir, prosecco, nebbiolo, and pinot bianco offers a model for sustainable water use in a warming and drying climate.

Jayden Ong Wines – Forest Garden Vineyard, Yarra Valley

The Forest Garden Vineyard sits on Mount Toolebewong in the Yarra Valley – at 663 metres above sea level, it is the highest-elevation vineyard in the Yarra Valley, sitting around 300 metres above the next closest site. Planted in October 2016 by winemaker Jayden Ong and his wife Morgan, the half-acre block of chardonnay – 1,600 vines close-planted on a steep, south-facing, rocky slope – is farmed entirely by hand, without irrigation, without heavy machinery, without herbicides, and without copper or sulphur. No synthetic chemicals of any kind have ever been applied. One wine is made from this site – the Jayden Ong Forest Garden Chardonnay – with the first commercial release arriving in 2026, after nearly a decade of farming a site that yielded no commercial crop for its first six to seven years.

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.

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.

Box Grove Vineyard, Nagambie Lakes

Box Grove Vineyard is a 27-hectare property in the parish of Tabilk in the Nagambie Lakes sub-region of the Goulburn Valley, planted in 1996 and owned and operated by Sarah Gough, with Callan Randall as vineyard manager. Where the vineyard began as a conventional commercial operation growing shiraz and cabernet sauvignon under contract for a large wine company, it has since been comprehensively transformed – through a decade and a half of progressive grafting – into one of the most varied and unusual vineyards in Victoria, now home to fifteen varieties drawn from Italy, southern France and Portugal. Accredited as Sustainable Winegrowers by the AWRI, Box Grove produces its own wines as well as supplying fruit to a tight cohort of innovative smaller producers including Fin, Ephemera, Mac Forbes, Vino Intrepido, Tar and Roses, Pfeiffer and others. The site is defined by soils of deep red clay and banks of granite sand over ancient decomposed creek beds, with Lake Nagambie moderating the extremes of a warm, dry growing season.

Pipan Steel Vineyard, Alpine Valleys Radley Steel and Paula Pipan