Vineyards

Ros and John are partners in Barwite Vineyard, which grows the fruit for our sparkling base, chardonnay, riesling, pinot grigio and now shiraz; the Dead Man's Hill vineyard in the county of Delatite,which is planted solely to gewürztraminer and inherited by Ros in 2009, makes both her dry and sweeter gewurz's.

We are also very fortunate to be able to secure fruit for ourother wines from several small regional vineyards, with which Ros has been familiar over many years.

These small vineyards produce grapes with delicious ripe flavours from low cropping vines and are tended with minimal herbicide and fungicide use.

Barwite

The Barwite vineyard, fifteen minutes from Mansfield on northeast facing slopes leading down to the Broken River, provides the fruit for our riesling. Harvested at a degree of ripeness to continue the fine character and style of our riesling, we carefully hand-pick to select the best fruit from the block.

We now harvest fruit for our pinot grigio, pinot gris, shiraz and the chardonnay component of the cuveefrom Barwite.

Baxendale

Ruth and Jim Baxendale’s vineyard is one of the coolest sites in the country due to the altitude at 868 meters above sea level. Most of the Whitlands High Plateau consists of Cambrian era loam – a deep, free draining, fertile red/brown soil.

Since 2009, the cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay has been grown entirely without irrigation, producing lower crops with increased intensity of flavour, which shows through in our wines made with Baxendale's fruit.

Black Range

The Black Range vineyard, which grows on a north-westerly slope at Limestone near Yea in the Murrindindi region just south of Mansfield, is planted to both shiraz and pinot gris and has provided the shiraz for our wine.

The wine made has rich and mature spicy fruit flavours with fine tannins, with good longevity.

Dead Man's Hill

In February 2009, Ros inherited the highly regarded Dead Man’s Hill vineyard and has been producing her highly acclaimed gewürztraminer from this vineyard since 2012.

At just under 500 mteres above sea level, it is planted wholly to gewurztraminer (by Ros’ father, Robert Ritchie in 1975 and 1977); the vineyard has deep soils and the vines were established without supplementary water and are on their own roots. Ros restored the vineyard to being dryland grown and the vines generally produce tiny crops of around one tonne per acre, with small-berried, intensely aromatic and flavoursome fruit.

Altitude 221

A small vineyard planted solely to pinot meunier and pinot noir at Booroolite, it is now tended lovingly by Gavan and Sally Spring, producing small berried fruit with concentrated flavours. Malcolm and Susan Kinloch had established the vines in 1994 concentrating on classic champagne varieties.

The vines produce delicious and full flavoured fruit for thebase wine of our elegant cuvee, which is then bottle fermented at Cofield Wines. Occasionally there is enough of the meunier produced to also make a superb, savoury table wine which has developed a passionate following!

McFadden's

Brad and Janine McFadden are the owners of a lovely vineyard of only 3 acres planted wholly to pinot gris, at the base of the hills just west of the great Dividing Range at Chapel Hill in Booroolite, twenty minutes from Mansfield.

Using organic principles of vine husbandry, the vineyard generally produces low crops, withconcentrated and intense fruit characters and round texture, firm structure and good acidity for our pinot gris.

Sandy Creek

The tempranillo grapes are grownby Ross and Jenny Cleelandon a tiny one-acre vineyard, plantedat Sandy Creek at Barjarg,in a warm site just fifteen minutes north of Mansfield.

Interestingly, the vines were transplanted from the Cowan's vineyard at Lima South in 2015 and only took one year to start producing fruit again.

The low-cropping vines produce fruit typical of the variety, with warm autumn fruit flavours and fine tannins.

Timbertop

The Timbertop vineyard was planted in the late 1980's on a high, north facing slope east of Mansfield, in the lee of Mt Timbertop and Mt Buller; Ros has been making wine from the Nebbiolo and Merlot for over 25 years and it has been the source of our own nebbiolo and merlot since 2010.

The nebbiolo produces fruit with a firm structure, fine acidity and savoury characters of tobacco leaf and spice, along with gentle rose florals, while the merlot has great concentration of berry flavours and supple, velvety tannins.