Berrigan bought the Shining Rock Vineyard, named for the mica-schist rocks in the soil here that “shine and glisten” in the sun, midway through 2020. In so doing, he inherited a semi-rundown gem that had been originally been planted by Hills legend Brian Croser in 1999. “He was searching for a site that was as close to the Northern Rhône as possible,” Berrigan notes, “in order to make high-end shiraz and viognier.” Back in 2020 the vineyard showed the touch of Croser in its “great bones”, but after nine years of part-time management under the prior owner it had seen better days. It “was showing a lot of areas of high variability, vine health issues such as cordon strangulation and Eutypa, as well as issues with irrigation and trellising,” Berrigan says. The solution? Hard work, and lots of it. “I have been working there almost every day since [purchasing],” Berrigan says. “Much of my funds was used in the initial purchase of the vineyard during COVID, so I have had to find ways to economically and sustainably improve the issues that the vineyard had.” Not that he had much choice in the matter: “It was either fix it now, or replant in 5 years,” he recalls.
A large part of that work has been trunk-renewing the original 8 hectares of shiraz and 2 of viognier – guiding suckers, cutting old cordons – to nix disease and even out yields. Spur pruning’s mostly out – 90% of the shiraz, all of the viognier, and all new plantings are cane-pruned now. “It’s higher quality,” he notes. “Better balance, less disease.” Rows spaced 2.1m apart are packed with 3,175 vines per hectare. The plantings are dense, but the canopies aren’t – Berrigan’s shoot-thinning and leaf-plucking regime means that sunlight bathes the fruit here, except for grüner, which remains shaded to preserve its natural racy zip. “I always love sunlight on my fruit (except for the grüner),” Berrigan says.
As the vineyard’s name suggests, the terroir here is distinct. “The vineyard is exceptionally rocky,” Berrigan says. Those shimmering mica-schist soils – rocky, low in clay content, and rare in the Hills – drain fast, which leads to concentrated grapes. “Our rainfall is much lower than even the nearby Hahndorf, Verdun and Woodside,” Berrigan explains, “and this is due to a rain shadow created by higher altitude hills to the west of us.” How much lower? “We typically receive less than half the rainfall of most areas in the Hills.” Fortunately for such a dry site, the bowl shape of the terrain provides “awesome air drainage resulting in almost zero frost risk”, meaning that precious water doesn’t have to be used in frost prevention.
The vineyard’s dryness pumps up the ripeness: “We can reach higher ripeness in our reds and obtain better concentration in our wines in cooler or wetter years,” Berrigan says. “We do lean into this dryness of the site and I run the vineyard with as minimal irrigation as possible.” When Berrigan does irrigate, he does so with dam-caught rainwater, topped up if necessary with reclaimed council water, its delivery precisely dialled in by soil probes and valves. “I run the reds with minimal water,” he says. “It’s about concentration.” Shiraz gets dark fruit depth, and sangiovese a raspberry edge – a marked distinction from the wetter lushness of Hahndorf fruit grown a mere 10 kilometres west.
Staggered pick dates help to dial in the concentration that has become the hallmark of this site. “We’ve got six different clones of Shiraz in our vineyard and over the last four years we’ve harvested each clone on at least two different picking dates,” Berrigan notes. This trial-and-error process is starting to yield results. “For each clone we’re getting closer to identifying the best fruit maturity to maximise flavour concentration, balanced with the flavours being in the right spectrum – where they’re not too ripe and jammy, or they’re not too green and astringent.”
Perhaps the biggest leap forward in quality here has come from a shift in pruning philosophy. Berrigan recalls tasting barrels of shiraz from vintage 2022 in the winter, after they had gone through malolactic conversion and as they were settling into oak. “I compared the Shiraz from our cane-pruned trial vines with the fruit from our spur-pruned vines,” he says. “In that moment, it became clear we needed to change our pruning approach. The cane-pruned Shiraz stood out – it was more balanced, refined, and had shed the subtle sweet-and-sour note that characterized the spur-pruned fruit. That tasting was a turning point, solidifying our decision to shift techniques.” It wasn’t just fruit quality that got a boost – yields steadied and ripening evened, too.
Sustainability here isn’t a salesperson’s slogan or hippie-dippy theory – it’s practical and personal. There hasn’t been any insecticide on site since Berrigan took possession in 2020. Solar panels (26kW) on two sheds power daytime irrigation, slashing both electricity bills and carbon footprint. “It was a financial decision,” Berrigan admits, “but we feel better running pumps on sunlight.” Cash flow can be a grind, but Berrigan has found ways to strike a balance between ecological sustainability and financial sustainability. “The industry’s tough,” he admits. “Running a vineyard and winery is capital-intensive – juggling growth and quality is a constant balance, but we’re over the hump.”
A big part of making the vineyard more profitable has been Berrigan’s deliberate diversification of varieties and an increased presence of white wine grapes. “We pulled out 2ha of shiraz because the demand for shiraz right now is depressed,” he says. The shiraz that went “was grown amongst some beautiful old gum trees [and was] showing too much eucalyptus character in their wines.” Those vines were replaced with chardonnay, and the “location amongst the gums has no negative sensory effect in the wine,” Berrigan says. “Next year, with the first harvest of our chardonnay, we’ll also achieve a better balance of grape varieties – 60% reds and 40% whites, compared to the 80% reds when I first purchased the property,” he says.
The vineyard is a living lab for Berrigan, who obsessively tinkers with the parameters in search of fruit quality – “bloody hard work to do with a very limited budget and without employing outside advice or consultants,” he notes. “We’ve streamlined it over 4.5 years. Better wine quality, higher yields per hectare—vines are stronger each season.” Climate change is hitting, too – 2024/25’s drought has seen him tweaking canopy management. “We’ve let vines sprawl a bit to provide some natural shade,” he says. Narrow rows make this work tricky – “If they sprawl too much, the vines get overcrowded, making it tough to get the tractor through.” His next move? Grafting a hectare of viognier over to chardonnay clone 95 for citrus punch.
“This vineyard has truly become a passion project for me,” Berrigan says. “Watching it grow and evolve is both addictive and incredibly rewarding. I love how the effort I put into the vineyard directly impacts the quality and style of the wines we produce. It’s amazing how small changes in the vineyard can lead to noticeable differences in the final product, and I really enjoy being able to track those results through the winemaking process. Having our winery right here on the property is a dream come true—it’s something I’ve longed for, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have it all come together like it has.” From Croser’s dreams of the Rhône to Berrigan’s hands-on hustle, Shining Rock isn’t just about rocky soil and low rain – it’s the story of a grower’s determination to rehabilitate a special place and to produce wines that stand tall in the Hills.
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