Perched on an escarpment high in the Beechworth GI, on wind-lashed Ordovician mudstone slopes, Fighting Gully Road presents itself as a long-form viticultural thesis – pragmatic, precise, and personal. Owned and farmed by Mark Walpole, one of Australian viticulture’s most influential thinkers, the vineyard quietly champions low-input sustainability without subscribing to labels or ideologies.
Viticulture here is a process of discovery. “What started with cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir in 1997 has evolved into sangiovese, tempranillo, chardonnay, verdicchio, and grenache,” Walpole explains, “each shift a response to the land’s cues.” Walpole brings a relentless spirit of enquiry to the land – trialling, tweaking, and sometimes overhauling entirely when the vineyard speaks otherwise. Varietal decisions are made with the long game in mind. “Time has proven what varieties perform at the site – and what does not,” he says. “Cabernet has been replaced with sangiovese, chardonnay and verdicchio – all for economic reasons, not because the cabernet wasn’t good!” Not that Walpole mindlessly follows market trends – if he did, the 12-hectare site would be blanketed in chardonnay. Instead, it’s about fit: matching vine to site and management to moment.
Climate change has sharpened Walpole’s focus. “There is no doubt it is getting warmer and the average commencement to vintage (on average) is advancing by about one day per year,” he says. Earlier-ripening pinot noir has given way to later-ripening, more resilient varieties like verdicchio and grenache. New rows are planted east–west to reduce sunburn, with drought-tolerant rootstocks favoured.
The site itself, a north-east-facing slope at 550 metres elevation, sets Fighting Gully Road apart from it’s Beechworth peers. “The FGR site is a ‘warm’ site in an otherwise ‘cool/mild’ region,” Walpole explains. “It is north-facing and exposed to a lot of wind and low humidity. This results in grapes with inherent tannins.” Walpole modifies winemaking to suit: “We take a minimalist approach to winemaking so as not to over extract tannins.” The drying winds mean irrigation is essential to build healthy canopies, while powdery mildew – not botrytis or downy – is the constant challenge. The soil here is unique, too. “ Our site is located on Ordovician mudstones,” Walpole explains. “Extremely well drained allowing 24/7 trafficability, which is often not possible on the granitic soils in other parts of the Beechworth region.”
Walpole summarises his approach as “low input sustainable conventional”. “If I have to use a herbicide I will,” he says. “I don’t use insecticides at all and sulphur sparingly (as it is an insecticide). I avoid where possible copper-based fungicides as they are residual.” He avoids cultivation entirely. Permanent midrow swards increase species diversity, while subterranean clover dominates the undervine zone. “I don’t graze livestock in the vineyard,” he says. “The cloven-hooved animals compact the soil … and reduce organic matter levels – the very thing I am trying to improve.”
Pruning is all arch cane – “the most sustainable system from a longevity point of view” – except for grenache, which is spur pruned to regulate yield and even budburst. “Cane pruning gives the most consistent yields from year to year and generally higher yields than spur pruning, leading to more economic sustainability long term,” he says. “We use a huge amount of hand labour for pruning, shoot thinning, leaf plucking, foliage lifting and picking. This is not particularly sustainable financially, but creates plenty of employment.” The results speak for themselves: “We have only ever lost one parcel of fruit (sangiovese, Brunello clone) to botrytis in the life of the vineyard – which was weather related, not insect related.”
The site’s newer plantings reflect this same methodical mindset. “New east-west rows do not get sunburned, which is very important for both red and white varieties.” Verdicchio has been planted in the lowest part of the vineyard due to its late budburst, reducing frost risk. He’s also trialling new imports like petite arvine from Italy’s Aosta Valley, part of a push to replace what Walpole calls “obsolete or climatically inappropriate varieties.”
Walpole has method, but there’s no doctrine. “I pretty much do my own thing. Forge my own path,” he says. “It’s been a gradual process of trial and error … I’m now pretty happy that we have our own ‘sustainable’ system that works on my site – which may not suit other properties in different areas.” The many trials that Walpole has undertaken at Fighting Gully Road have lead him to one enduring thesis: when a vineyard is treated as a living, changing system – not a fixed set of inputs – the results don’t just grow, they reveal.
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