When Lauren and Matthias Utzinger first set foot on the northeastern slope that would become their vineyard, they felt something elemental. “Not a day goes by where we aren’t all very thankful for where we have set down our roots,” Matthias says. “In fact, its sheer beauty helps us get through the days and the difficulties of the rocks and boulders that the vines are planted between.” That sense of reverence for the land runs through every part of the Utzinger Vineyard – a small but fastidiously managed site in northern Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. Planted in 2018, the vineyard is organic certified, with four hectares currently under vine and another hectare currently being developed. It’s a young site, but one shaped by deep experience and a commitment to sustainability from the ground up.
“We were lucky that we were able to start with a blank canvas,” Matthias says. “Our site used to be a sheep and cattle farm, and never saw any herbicide or broad spectrum insecticides.” Soil testing revealed not a trace of prohibited inputs — a rare opportunity to build a vineyard from scratch on uncompromised land. But that clean start also came with challenges. “The blank canvas also meant not a lot of vineyard-specific beneficial insects were on-site,” Matthias says. “The introduction of selected beneficials and alternate mowing, together with leaving certain areas undisturbed … helped build up a good population in a short time.”
Vines are planted densely — 6,500 per hectare — to encourage natural balance and reduce vigour. Matthias explains: “The idea behind the higher density is to create higher root zone competition and keep individual vine vigour lower.” This attention to detail continues beneath the vines, where tillage is preferred to cover cropping: “With our low vines, we can’t allow for an under vine cover crop, because it gets into the canopy too quickly, creating humid conditions and favouring fungal disease,” Matthias says. “The planned future application of compost should further help to alleviate the aforementioned issues.”
A strong focus on canopy management, shoot thinning, and targeted fruit thinning underpins the vineyard’s precision viticulture. “All fruit is hand harvested in individual clonal batches,” Matthias notes. “We adhere to a minimum exposed canopy surface of 1.4 square meters per kilogram of fruit produced.” Vineyard operations are tailored to the site’s unique conditions – brown dermosols over clay subsoil, rich with ironstone gravel for drainage. “We have dug a five-megaltire dam on-site, which fills with winter run-off and is sufficient for all our irrigation needs,” Matthias says. “The long-term goal is to dry grow whenever possible.”
Beyond the vineyard, Matthias and his family have dedicated 20% of their land to revegetation. “We have set aside 20% of our land to a revegetation program,” he says, “in order to create corridors for native wildlife and create habitat for beneficial insects and birds.” This effort is already paying off in the landscape. “When we took on our site in 2018, it was a biodiversity nightmare,” Matthias says. “Not a single tree in sight and, telling from the gun shells, whatever wildlife there was ended up on someone’s plate.” The vineyard is now full of all sorts of life: recently, “while slashing the inter-row, I saw an Eastern barred bandicoot, and had dragonflies swarming around the tractor – all whilst a wedge-tailed eagle was circling high above,” Matthias says with pride. “I knew we were on the right track.”
The vineyard produces a focused range of wines under the Utzinger label, including Estate and White Label Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, a fumé blanc, and a syrah. All of the Estate wines are made by Matthias from the grapes he grows – a synergy that enables full expression of site and season. “As a vigneron, making the wine from the vines I tend to every year, every wine is a testimony to the notion of provenance,” he says. “During the year, I build a virtual map in my head of where what kind of fruit grows. Come harvest, I know exactly what parcel I want to use for [any given] wine.”
An example of this vineyard-to-winery feedback loop played out in chardonnay. “We have changed our leaf plucking regime on chardonnay in 2023,” Matthias explains. “We used to expose the fruit quite a bit to reduce fungal disease pressure, but we realised that the resulting wines were somewhat broad and lacked finesse. We found a distinct honeysuckle character, which we attributed to the sun exposure of our fruit. When we changed it for vintage ’23 and ’24, leaving the fruit more covered, the wines looked tighter, with fresher aromatics and some more flinty reduction.”
Looking forward, the vineyard is preparing to plant three Swiss varieties – petite arvine, rouge du pays, and divico – imported by Matthias himself. “This project has been many years in the making and we are now in the last phase of propagation,” he says. At the same time, Utzinger is taking steps to further reduce inputs and enhance soil health. “Our next chapter includes band-applying compost under our rows,” Matthias says. “This will help build up organic content in our soil, support the soil microbiome, reduce soil temperature in summer, and hopefully even out the vigour over the whole vineyard.”
Even as a small, family-run operation, Utzinger Vineyard has already had a broader impact in the region. “We are currently employing two young winemakers as part-time employees, showing them how crucial and important the vineyard is to the final product,” Matthias says. “It’s that mental link that is created when you spend your time in the vineyard … that I’m really passionate about and that I want to teach other people in the industry.”
It’s not all serious business. “Putting in a vineyard on a relatively low budget means the whole family must help and pull their weight. In the pre-planting, whilst laying out the posts, we asked Lauren’s mum to drive the old articulated tractor, not thinking that her short legs might not get to the brake pedal,” Matthias recalls. “I vividly remember seeing a tractor going downhill, getting faster and faster, with my mother-in-law screaming from the top of her lungs. Thankfully our neighbours’ strongly-built fence stopped the rollercoaster ride soon enough, and nobody was injured. I have never seen my mother-in-law on a tractor again …”
For Matthias, the vineyard is as much about people as it is about place. “We’re very lucky that we’re surrounded by amazing people in the region that motivate, help out and push for excellence,” he says. “Some of our decisions in regards to how we planted were directly influenced by the advice we received.” He’s keen to give back, too. “We see our biggest contribution to this community in proving that a more sustainable viticulture is possible, even in difficult growing conditions like the ones we often face down here,” he says.
From the vineyard rows to the cellar door and out to the regenerating margins, Utzinger Vineyard tells the story of what’s possible when a new site is built not just with ambition, but with also care, patience and a strong moral compass. “This is not only a workplace,” says Matthias. “It’s also home to me and my family.”
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