We need your help to protect ourselves against future catastrophic frosts… Grab a box of our ‘Fundraiser Syrah’

We were counting the sleeps till Melbourne Cup weekend when we can let our guard down and cross ‘frost’ off the list of things to worry about… and then this happened:

Spring has sprung and our new releases are nearly ready to fly the nest. Keep an eye on your emails. They won’t hang around for long.

‘Tis the season of celebration, community, carols and cheer… Our 2021 Pét nat is here and ready to help you get through the season without using the C word…

Current releases and where to get them – from us via email or our online store, try before you buy at one of our summer cellar door days, pick up a bottle or two from one of our wonderful stockists or enjoy one at a fabulous restaurant

Our Pinot noir and Chardonnay are confident, gentle and joyful expressions of how these varieties perform in healthy South Gippsland soils, and demonstrate how our wines have come of age.

This year we’re all out of kilter with the seasons. Once we’d finished picking and processing the last of the grapes this autumn, we skipped the usual winter rest and immediately turned our attention to the enormous task of preparing our new vineyard for planting this spring. The spring that never came.

It’s time to fill you in a long-term dream that is slowly becoming a reality. Post by post.

After 45 months aging on lees this is the best our Pét nat has looked and half a glass is definitely not enough.

Local, sustainable, natural… the buzz words are reaching fever pitch. It’s time to hang out the greenwashing.

We’ve made the difficult decision to pause our cellar door to keep our little ones safe. In the meantime, we’ve just stocked up our online store with a bunch of goodies for you.

Having been performing on and off for some thirty years, our Cabernet is finally delivering its swan song.

Let’s catch up after this prolonged period of lockdowns, blackouts… lockouts.

We grow and make a product no-one really needs, and use precious resources in the process. So how do we sleep at night?

Welcome back to our place with our new, COVID-safe cellar door experience. Bookings now open!

After 12 months in barrel and a luxurious 18 months in bottle, our 2018 Pinot noir is ready to make its debut, and just in time for the season.

There’s an important movement happening in our region that we want you to know about. The Prom Coast Food Collective is supporting ethical family businesses and farming practices that are good for the planet. And we’ve jumped on board.

Hearty winter fare means gutsy cabs or at least a fruit forward pinot, surely?
I beg to differ.

The sixth on our farm and, while no two vintages have been the same, this one was right off the charts. Read our notes from what was a wacky ride in the world of wine.

Dear friends Wow, we have been overwhelmed by the amazing response to our last email. Thank you so much to everyone who got in touch and put their hand up … Continued

March sees us in voluntary self-isolation anyway as we shut out all distractions and focus our energy into harvesting our crop, but with our customers shutting up shop we’re feeling the paradigm shift even in our little oasis

Five years on The Wine Farm and we’re gathering knowledge of the seasons and how the farm responds. We bank this knowledge in a special corner of the cellar. It’s called library stock.

Bubbles aint bubbles. There are so many ways to make wine sparkle and given the one we use is a little left of centre we thought it might be timely to give you a ready reckoner on all things fizz. Plus, get your hands on our 2018 Pétillant naturel.

It’s official, we’re now ‘Australian Demeter Biodynamic in conversion’. So what the hell does that mean? Let’s break it down.

When the fruit entering your cellar looks like a still life and you’re already painting a mental picture of the final product, you can’t help but wonder if this might be the one. 2017 was a great year for growing Pinot noir in South Gippsland.

When we bought The Wine Farm five years ago we inherited eight varieties of grapes in two types of soil and varying states of health. Now they’ve had a chance to show their true potential in this cool climate and with our way of farming, it’s time to make some changes.

If your typical cab sav is dark and broody, our Farm Wine Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 is bright and light on its feet with gentle tannins, a lovely texture and no sharp edges. Think raspberries not blackcurrants; herbs not tobacco.

Think uber not black cab.

Vintage 2019 was tracking along nicely. Probably the best yet for our short tenure on The Wine Farm. But just as we were sharpening our snips in preparation for picking, three days of 35–40°C stopped us in our tracks and got us all hot under the collar.

‘Cool climate’ is a term that gets used a lot in the wine world but not always appropriately. It’s the weather during ripening that really counts, and the closer to picking the more of an impact it has on the ultimate style of your wine.

This morning the last of the nets went over the vines marking the end of the back-breaking vineyard work till harvest starts in about three weeks; the cellar door is now closed until Easter; and the kids’ activities have started up again for the year (including our oldest starting school!). It truly does feel like new beginnings.

Until now we’ve tackled weeds in the vineyard by slashing under the vines. But when your back hurts just looking at the vineyard at the beginning of the growing season, and then your tractor starts making the same groaning noises as you, it’s time to re-assess the situation.

The Wine Farm Pinot gris 2017 – dry, textured and full of flavour it’s a nod to the Italians, a kiss on both cheeks with the French but 100% The Wine Farm.

When we first bought this property and all its beautifully manicured flowerbeds we knew we wouldn’t have time to stop and smell the roses… so we pulled them all out. Then politely dismissed the gardener.

There’s nowhere to hide with our pét-nat. With no added sugar, zero sulphur, no additions whatsoever, you are literally left with grapes in a bottle. So those grapes had better be good!

Turning fruit into wine is fraught with problems. There are hordes of bad bugs and yeasts out there waiting to infiltrate your cellar, get their claws into your juice and turn it into vinegar.

So how do you stop them? And without creating a host of new problems like headaches, breathing difficulties and worst of all, ho-hum wine…

A well made rosé should command as much respect as a decent white wine. Well, nearly. It should be dry, light in colour, smell of light bright berries with maybe a touch of dried herbs and a slight tannin tingle to finish. Delicious.

Good wine has great flavour. Great flavour comes from beautiful fruit. And beautiful fruit comes from a healthy farm. Conventional, organic, biodynamic… what is the best way to farm grapes?

With the first of our 2017 vintage ready to release, it’s time to offer up the fruits of our labour so you can decide for yourselves if you think our approach works.

Introducing The Wine Farm Chardonnay 2017.

We’re always talking about the importance of wines being allowed to show ‘place’ – keeping the fruit pure to let it express the soil in which it grew. So given we’re very nearly ready to share the first of our 2017 wines with you, we thought we should tell you a bit about our place first. What’s so special about The Wine Farm?

In Neil’s native South Africa, where he studied and started his career in wine, vineyards are commonly referred to as ‘wine farms’. The focus is on growing grapes and the people who grow them are farmers.

Here at The Wine Farm we work hard to make pure wine that shows place not process.

It’s taken us a long time to come up with those few words, and while they might not sound like much to you they mean the world to us.

      We’ve just started a conversation with people who value the same sort of wine as us – wine that is pure; wine that shows place not process … Continued