The vineyard was first planted in 1998, with subsequent plantings in 2000, 2001, 2006, 2016 and 2023 taking it to its current size across multiple aspects and soil types. The oldest vines are now 27 years old, with an average vine age of around 20 years. Pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc and pinot gris make up the varietal mix across a site whose internal diversity is central to the Small Wonder project. “This site isn’t one uniform vineyard,” says Nunn. “It’s different aspects, different soils, different blocks that behave differently. We manage blocks separately when we need to, because some parcels carry disease pressure differently and some just ripen differently.”
“The adoption of cane pruning across specific blocks has opened the canopy and reduced disease pressure, this is essential as organic production is not just about spraying but all the finer details that go into site management. We discovered early on that although the site had a history of wrapping up to four canes for yield – but with a shift to certified organic production and a quality focus this was difficult to manage. We have since found a balance between two and 2.5 canes per vine to be ideal – fitting in with our detailed canopy management quality focus and organic production.”
“Block 2 Pinot has an area where the slope is more pronounced, this picks up more sunlight and warmth which we see in the phenology from budburst to flowering and maturity. Identifying this gives us the chance to fine tune maturity and quality from targeted harvest operations as everything is picked and sorted by hand.”
The conversion to certified organic viticulture has driven both the philosophy and the practice of the vineyard’s management. Nunn is direct about what organics does and doesn’t do for a site in Tasmania’s warm, humid Tamar Valley. “Sustainability isn’t a marketing line to me. It’s whether this place can keep producing quality fruit without pretending the site is something it’s not. Organics here doesn’t make things easier and it doesn’t always make vines ‘healthier’. What it does is force us to farm with more discipline and less denial.” The principal challenge in the Tamar is the speed at which disease pressure can build. Powdery mildew, downy mildew and botrytis are managed through a refined organic spray program, but the more fundamental responses are cultural: canopy management, shoot thinning, leaf plucking, bunch thinning and careful pruning style that controls disease before it requires treatment. “The biggest challenge is organics in a place where the weather can swing hard and disease pressure can arrive fast. The way we manage it is staying proactive: canopy work, watching forecasts, and adjusting quickly when the season turns.”
Pruning has been a central area of attention since the transition began. Historically, the site had been managed with up to four canes per vine for yield – an approach incompatible with organic quality production. The conversion process identified two to two-and-a-half canes as the optimal balance: enough to produce a quality crop, manageable enough to maintain the open canopy and airflow that organic viticulture requires. All pruning and shoot thinning now follows gentle pruning principles that respect sap flow, old wood and the continuity of growth. The work on copper reduction is also underway – investigating plant defence elicitors and biological antagonists as alternatives to copper fungicides, which, while organic, accumulate as heavy metals in the soil over time.
What Nunn has also pursued is a more granular reading of the site – moving from block-level management to parcel-level precision, using NDVI satellite imaging, solar radiation mapping and ground-truthing to identify areas of higher quality potential within individual blocks. “We’ve learnt pretty quickly that if you treat every block the same, you end up with the same result,” says Nunn. “We started breaking it down by block and clone, then adjusting canopy and disease management to suit.” Bud number and percentage budburst are tracked across seasons to find the ideal pruning level for each block – a balance point where less intervention in-season is needed because the vine is set up correctly at the start. “That’s mostly won in the vineyard. If you get it wrong early, you spend the rest of the year trying to recover it.”
Block 3 was the vineyard’s defining revelation. “When we first realised it was distinctly different, harvest was a disaster,” says Nunn. “But it made it obvious the block wasn’t the same as the others. With clone 114/115 it’s more delicate, it’s more pretty, it’s less robust in a lot of ways. Once we stopped trying to force it to behave like everything else and managed it on its own terms, it started to make sense.” The Block 3 Pinot Noir ($56) is now the flagship expression of what targeted management of a specific micro-terroir can produce. Similarly, a section of the Block 10 riesling was identified via NDVI vine health mapping and solar radiation analysis as having the potential to achieve greater maturity than the surrounding rows. Isolated, with crop load managed and vinified separately, it has become a distinct wine in its own right – an expression of a particular slope and aspect rather than a block average.
Winemaker Andrew Trio describes how the pinot noir blocks are routinely split into multiple picks based on soil type, vine vigour and sun exposure. “Our Landscape Series Pinot Noir is intended to be softer, and more fruit-forward in style, which often comes from the lower portions of the vineyard on sandier soils, which are then handled gently through fermentation. The soils at the top of the hill have greater clay content, which produces earth-driven wines with greater detail and structure. These go into our Auburn Pinot Noir and single-block wines.” The same attention extends to the whites. “Detailed work in our riesling blocks has enhanced texture and concentration on the palate with a more seamless integration of fruit weight and acidity,” says Trio.
The broader context is a site already tested by the variability of recent seasons – 2024 the hottest vintage in 20 years, the following year the coldest in decades, 2020 the wettest in 20 years. Nunn’s response is pragmatic rather than programmatic. “Hot years: more canopy for protection. Wet years: more airflow and disease prevention. Cold years: adjust crop load and timing to get ripeness without losing quality. There isn’t one fix. It’s constant adaptation.” What the work at Small Wonder is building toward, Nunn says, is a healthier system around the vines rather than an input-driven program – cover crops and undervine management that suits the site’s actual conditions, a vineyard that can exist alongside nature rather than constantly trying to override it. “The payoff is simple,” he says. “Cleaner fruit in, cleaner wines out. When the season is challenging, that difference is obvious in the glass.”
GET FIRST ACCESS TO THE NEXT WINE ICONS – DELIVERED
Find out moreEach month, get 3 bottles of our freshest discoveries. We taste thousands to bring you the best.
Join us and support emerging winemakers, sustainable vineyards, and the development of young professionals.
Please sign in or create account as candidate to bookmark this job
Please sign in or create account to save this search
Please sign in or create account as candidate to create a resume
