The BEST WINES are the ones we drink with friends…
The passion for wine and viticulture started in the cool climate region of Orange in NSW in 1995 at Bloodwood Estate. It was here that I was lucky to be mentored by a pioneer of the region and industry, which gave me a strong grounding to grow premium wine grapes.
After 25 years of challenging viticulture in three wine regions around Australia (Orange NSW, Hunter Valley NSW and Adelaide Hills SA) I have experienced growing grapes for the family wine companies to the corporate wine giants.
I have learnt over the years that every vintage and region is different and that a proactive approach, attention to detail, and precision timing is the only recipe to super premium vineyard management. Every vineyard has different soils, aspects, varieties, row orientations and microclimates and this is what inspires and challenges me to try and grow better fruit every year.
The past 14 years of vineyard management in the Adelaide Hills has allowed me to grow contracted fruit for more than 40 of the top / leading wine companies in SA. Every vigneron and winemaker has different ideas and perceptions on what viticultural practices are required to make an amazing wine and Vella Wines has captured all these ideas, concept’s and beliefs in our own bottle of wine.
Owning and managing my own vineyard management company has given me the competitive edge in having over 108 individual blocks to select our special parcels of fruit.
The parcels of fruit that are selected to go into Vella Wines have received high input viticulture (royal treatment in the vineyard) with hand-pruning, shoot thinning, lateral thinning, leaf plucking, bunch thinning, multiple wire-lifts, hand picking and precision deficit irrigation.
Successful viticulture is all about timing, flexibility and sometimes just luck! We have a specific recipe that we start the growing season with and depending on what cards we are dealt from the weather gods, depends on what inputs and operations require changing or tweaking to achieve our ultimate goal.