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After hearing tall tales of the Victorian klondike, he jumped ship and made his way to the Castlemaine goldfields. Black Jack mined no fortune but he found his fame as the only American mariner to still be savoured alongside have claimed the eminent M.Chapoutier Trophy for Best Shiraz at the prestigious Le Concours des Vinson on no fewer than three occasions... Found berth in the australian colonies during the goldrush of the 1850s»
Established 1908, Redman's Coonawarra are still made by the Redman brothers from fruit grown to the original family parcels. The tradition began 1901 when Bill Redman, at the tender age of fourteen, made the journey to take up an apprenticeship at the John Riddoch wineworks and to labour amongst Coonawarra's founding vineyards. Bill Redman's earliest vintages were sold off to other companies but it was not until 1952 that the Redman family released their own wines under the moniker Rouge Homme. Redman was finally branded under its own label in 1966, it remains one of the most enduring marques in Coonawarra. Husbanded by the 4th generation, parcels from the 1966 vines are assembled into the estate.. The velvet virtue of old coonawarra vines»
Beechworth attracts the most artisanal winemakers, the region's rich mineral soils and parched, undulating terrains, breed wines of vigorous flavour, crystalline textures and boney savoury tannins. The first parcel of Crown Land in the region was acquired by Isaac Phillips in 1857, he christened his estate Golden Ball and built a hotel named Honeymooners Inn, servicing miners on their way up the steep trails to the Beechworth goldfields. The old pub remains but the surrounding land has been turned over to viticulture, planted to vine in the nineteen naughties, it produces a quality of wine that's reserved for the nation's most exclusive winelists. Served by savvy sommeliers and savoured by the most.. Small batches of beechworth's best»
Mount Difficulty are a commune of growers, established 1998 within the elite dress circle of Central Otago vineyards. Propitiously placed around the ancient goldfields of Cromwell Basin, their harvests had long been called upon for bottling under the labels of New Zealand's most conspicuous brands. Launched as a limited release of small batch, single block vintages, the co operative of accomplished growers, has evolved through critical acclaim and word of mouth, into a formidable range of Central Otago, defined by their excellence and exquisite eloquence of.. Venerable vignerons of the very deep south»

Clonakilla Viognier CONFIRM VINTAGE

Viognier Hilltops New South Wales
Bedecked with gold medals, significant trophies and countless five star commendations. Clonakilla is a wine that's ultimately determined in the vineyard, where hard work is required to open up the vine leaf canopies, limiting yields and encouraging vines to make grapes with riper flavour profiles. The vinification process embraces old world techiques such as the inclusion of whole bunches in the ferments, macerations and extravagant French oak barrel maturation.
Viognier
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Clonakilla
Clonakilla is a small, family winery dedicated to making distinctive, handcrafted wines, they can be hard to find but are worth the search

Clonakilla was established in 1971 by John Kirk, a Canberra based research scientist. Of Irish descent, John came to Australia with his young family in 1968 to work with the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry. To his surprise despite the suitability of the environment there was no wine industry in the cool southern table lands of NSW around Canberra. To remedy this situation, in 1971 he bought a 44 acre farm near the village of Murrumbateman in New South Wales, 40 kilometres north of Canberra. The soil consisted of sandy clay loams over a friable clay subsoil and, with a climate not dissimilar to the Bordeaux region and Northern Rhone valley in France, he held high hopes for its wine producing potential.

Clonakilla

He proceeded to plant 1.2 acres each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Riesling. He named the property Clonakilla (‘meadow of the church’) after his grandfather’s farm in County Clare. A further 1.2 acres of Shiraz, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were planted in 1972 and the vines grew well, although some were lost in a drought in 1972-73. John persevered and produced the Canberra District’s first commercial vintage in 1976: a Riesling and a Cabernet Shiraz. It wasn’t until 1978 when a bore was sunk that larger plantings became feasible. From 1978 to the present the vineyard was gradually expanded with Shiraz, Viognier, Riesling and the Cabernet family, now making up the bulk of the vineyard.

At the end of 1996 John’s fourth son Tim left a career in school teaching to work full time in the family business as winemaker and general manager. In 1998 Tim and his wife Lara bought the 50 acre property next door and planted Shiraz and Viognier as well as a small olive grove on the warm north-east facing slope. Between the two properties there are now twenty two acres under vine with further plantings planned for the future.

Through the seventies and eighties the Cabernet and Shiraz were blended together in traditional Australian style. With the 1990 vintage Clonakilla decided to bottle the wines separately. The first Shiraz went on to win two gold, one silver and two trophies in only three showings. It was at this point that Clonakilla began to see the potential of Shiraz in the Canberra District.

Clonakilla

In 1991 Tim travelled to the Rhone Valley in France. There he tasted a number of impressive Shiraz wines including Marcel Guigal’s single vineyard blends of Shiraz and the rare white grape Viognier. Inspired by those wines Tim began including a small amount of Viognier in his own Shiraz as of 1992. The Viognier component now accounts for between five and ten percent and adds an intriguing floral dimension to the wine.

Clonakilla also started incorporating other winemaking approaches that were unashamedly borrowed from Rhone valley and Burgundian winemakers: inclusion of whole bunches in the ferments, pre-ferment maceration and French oak barrel maturation. More importantly he worked harder in the vineyard to open up the vine leaf canopies, limit yields and produce grapes with riper flavour profiles. The work began to yield some impressive results, with gold medals, trophies and numerous five-star reviews following in succession. It is this wine, the Shiraz Viognier, that has cemented Clonakilla's reputation as one of Australia’s top small wineries, having been named NSW Wine of the Year in 1999, Penguin Wine of the Year in 2002 and one of Australia’s top ten Shiraz (Gourmet Traveller Wine). It is ranked Outstanding in the prestigious Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine. It is one of only five Shiraz to receive a perfect rating in Jeremy Oliver’s Australian Wine Annual.

In 1998 Clonakilla began producing a straight Viognier, now seen as an Australian benchmark for the style. The Riesling and the Hilltops Shiraz are rising stars. The newly named Ballinderry, a Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc/Merlot blend, made from some of the oldest vines on the property, is now also drawing critical acclaim. Clonakilla currently produce around 9000 cases of wine per year and you will find them at many of the best restaurants in the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Clonakilla