There’s a quiet reverence that follows the name Sailor Seeks Horse. It’s a label that sparks attention in sommelier circles, known for producing pinot noir and chardonnay with clarity, restraint and structure – wines that speak softly but insistently. And at the heart of it is an eponymous vineyard planted and nurtured by Paul and Gilli Lipscombe, with an eye not only towards quality in the glass but also towards a broader, deeper commitment to site expression and vineyard health.
The Sailor Seeks Horse vineyard, tucked into a steep, sandy slope at Cradoc in the Huon Valley, was first planted in 2005. “When we saw the site, we felt it had huge potential,” Gilli recalls. “North-east facing slope, frost free (ish), and well-drained sandy loam soil over clay.” It was home a long-abandoned planting of pinot noir and other miscast varieties, some of which were soon removed and replaced with Dijon clones of chardonnay. Pinot noir was the focus of the new planting – and still is – but now includes a complex mix of clones including Abel, 777, 667, 943 and 828.
“The Huon is Australia’s coolest, though not coldest, wine-growing region, and is the baseline for our belief that the best Pinot Noirs are made where the fruit only just gets over the line,” Paul says. “Too warm and you lose interest and complexity.
Our site is located in Cradoc in the Huon which is slightly cooler and drier than surrounding mesoclimates in the area. We are sheltered from the westerlies and easterlies by the mountains either side and protected from the big rainfall events that can cause disease issues on the east coast.”
The soil profile, dominated by sandstone-derived Permian mudstone, is inherently infertile and acidic, conditions they see as an advantage. “We have been fearful of overly fertile soils with excess vigour, high yields and uninteresting, simple, fruity wines,” Gilli explains. “We liked the fairly neutral soils we had selected.”
The vineyard is dry-farmed by design, but the recent trend of arid summers in the Huon has tested that philosophy. “We came in part for the regular (if not high) summer rainfall but it’s like the tap gets turned off on the first of January now,” Paul says. “It challenges your dry-farming philosophy, and we’ve always said we won’t be dogmatic about anything – so if we need in the future to switch it on, then we have that option.”
Climate aside, yields have been their biggest challenge. “We made a rod for our own backs by selecting a restrictive site, not irrigating in a drying climate, and taking a less-is-more approach to fertilisers,” Gilli admits. Yields have hovered around two to 2.5 tonnes per hectare – economically unsustainable in the long run. “We don’t have to increase yields by a lot (we’d be happy with an average of 3.5 tonnes per hectare), so it’s about getting a little more balance in the vines without changing things dramatically.”
Much of their recent effort has gone into boosting soil biology and vine nutrition without tipping over into excess. Cover cropping (a five-species mix), foliar feeding, winter grazing with sheep and trials with microbial inputs all play a part. “We have attempted to increase soil biology and nutrition,” Paul says. “But we definitely haven’t found the magic bullet yet.”
One innovation that has proven effective has been the use of Mycoforce – a natural fungus-based bioinsecticide. “We did a lot of research into trying to find a product that could deal with weevils more naturally,” says Paul. “Beauveria bassiana could work, so we’ve been using that and it seems to have been successful so far in reducing the incidence and increasing fruit quality.”
Stylistically, their pinot noir and chardonnay reflect the delicacy of the Huon’s long, cool growing season, but with no shortage of depth. “We saw Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat in California once talk at the International Pinot Noir Celebration of how he went and found a vineyard that would give him the style of pinot he wanted – that lightness of touch and filigree but underlying power,” Paul recounts. “That really resonated with us as it was what we had done – finding somewhere where you just get over the line.”
“Our wines have a salinity to them that seems to correlate with sandy, quartz-like soils,” Paul adds. “We also have areas that are more clay-dominated [in the] bottom half of the vineyard, so you get that diversity of soil structure which gives layers in the wines. It is also a very undulating block which again gives different exposure levels and different canopy densities. So even more layers.”
The vineyard’s topography is part of that equation. The site “sits in a larger amphitheatre that drops the temperatures at night as the cooler air banks up as it flows down the river,” Paul explains. That cooler air leads to longer hang time for more flavour and naturally lower yields for better concentration. “Sometimes we’ll pick the same clone as a nearby vineyard four weeks later than them, with us at 12.5 Baumé and 2.5 tonnes per hectare versus them at 13.5 Baumé and seven tonnes per hectare.”
That extra hang time, slow ripening, and dry farming gives a combination of intensity and lightness – a defining hallmark of their estate wines. The pinot noir is turned into three expressions the Sailor Seeks Horse label – an estate pinot noir, a cuvée of only Dijon clone estate fruit, and a final cuvée named Huldufólk from the newer block, planted in 2018 to clones that favour purity and lifted aromatics. Chardonnay is treated similarly, with multiple Dijon clones aimed at building complexity and tension.
Looking ahead, the next evolution is likely to be in vine health and water retention. “We’d love to have more bodies in the vineyard and access to a slush fund for new equipment,” Gilli says with a laugh. “But really those things just create time to do the things you want to trial and experiment with – undervine mulching is probably the next step as we look to retain soil moisture through the middle to late part of the season, as well as increasing microbial activity.”
What started as a search for a site with the potential to make some of Australia’s most compelling pinot noir and chardonnay has matured into a vineyard that is, in many ways, a study in restraint. Its quietness – from the site itself to the way Paul and Gilli farm it – is part of its appeal. “So the style is, to a degree, dictated by the site itself and its low fertility, along with not irrigating and then taking our time when making the wines,” Paul says. “We don’t want the wines to be dominated by any one thing, so decisions are made both in the vineyard and the winery that support, not force.”
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