Sustainability
A boutique winery nestled on the undulating Terra Rossa hills of Pokolbin – the heart & soul of the famous Hunter Valley wine growing region.
With only 4 acres of Chardonnay & 4 acres of Shiraz vines on the home estate, we produce around 200 cases of each of these flagship wines each year. This Limited Release allows us to craft the wines with Premium French Oak, both new & old. The vines are now approximately 35 years of age & are really producing high quality fruit as they are now fully mature vineyards.
In recent years we have tied in a “family” element to these flagship wines, with the the Shiraz now known as the “H.A.E” Shiraz (our son Hugo’s initials) & the Chardonnay named “The Grace” (after our youngest child). Hopefully the legacy & family label lives on well into the future with the next generation at the helm!
We believe in, and practice, regenerative farming processes with a focus on sustainability. Come, look and see for yourself!
In recent years we have begun to work with like minded neighbouring vineyards to produce other premium Hunter Valley grown wines. This includes Verdelho, Vermentino, Sangiovese, Sagratino & Mencia just to name a few. These projects are extremely exciting for us & we strive to maintain our underlying ethos of ethically & sustainability grown wines. A focus on small batch production across our range is essential in creating exclusivity and maintaining quality.
Each year around January/February, we hold a picking ‘luncheon’, where family, friends, members & anyone else who happens to be nearby, help to hand pick the fruit. As the legend of the long lunch that follows continues to grow, the picking seems to be getting a little easier. As they say, many hands make light work!
We hope you share our passion for quality single vineyard Estate wines, and enjoy the ride as we look to continually strive for success from vintage to vintage.
Insects reintroduction
At Elbourne Wines we have been introducing insects, especially lacewings and ladybugs, back into our vineyards to help the environment and reduce pests. Due to chemicals wiping out the beneficial insects over the years. We have introduced millions of beneficial insects doing a bug breeding program from DPI. Our program promoting predator insects plus predator birds, we don’t have to use pesticides. Keeping our vineyard clean and healthy. By introducing the beneficiary bugs to our vineyard it helps fight pests like scale/aphids and mealy bugs therefore decreasing our use for nasty chemicals which in return helps the native bug population in and around our vineyard.
We also have a diverse plant environment to help establish beneficiary bugs both during growing season and dormancy. We have been planting thousands of native plants in wattle, callistemon and leptospermum, to restore habitats.
We started this program after reading that the global insect population has decreased by 41% in the last 40 years. Now we don’t get brown apple moth, caterpillars, slugs or snails. We were also horrified when a Vet diagnosed our coughing sheep with a lung problem after eating snails in the vineyard. That started our journey of putting large flocks of geese, ducks and hundreds of chooks in our vineyards. Then we learnt most commercial vineyards spend thousands on pest control in sprays.
Also, by bringing biodiversity back, we are increasing our quality and quantity of grapes, plus helping the environment.
