Yalumba

Not far from the town of Angaston in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, Yalumba Winery has been producing wine continuously since 1849. It is Australia’s oldest family-owned winery, now run by the sixth generation of the Hill-Smith family, and one of the few wineries in the world that still makes its own oak barrels.

History

The story begins with Samuel Smith, a British brewer from Wareham in the county of Dorset, who arrived in South Australia by ship in 1847. He settled in Angaston, bought some land and named his farm Yalumba, a word believed to derive from the Peramang language spoken by the indigenous people of the area, meaning ‘the whole surrounding area’.

In 1849, he and his son Sydney planted the first vines. For much of its early history, Yalumba was known for its fortified wines. From the 1960s onwards, there was a shift towards dry table wines, and since then the estate has built an international reputation.

Today it is run by the fifth and sixth generations of the Hill-Smith family.

Vineyards

Yalumba’s vineyards span several regions of South Australia. In the Barossa Valley, key sites include the Tri-Centenary vineyard, planted in 1889 and home to some of the world’s oldest Grenache bush vines, as well as the Steeple vineyard in Light Pass, planted in 1919 and currently certified as organic and biodynamic.

In 2015, a new 72,000-vine plot was planted on the estate in Light Pass, using 16 Shiraz clones and five Cabernet Sauvignon clones developed at the Yalumba nursery. In Coonawarra, at The Menzies Estate, Cabernet Sauvignon is the primary variety grown on the region’s prized terra rossa soils. The winery also sources grapes from Eden Valley, a cooler, high-altitude sub-region situated above the Barossa Valley.

Grape Varieties

The main varieties are Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Viognier and Riesling, reflecting the conditions of both the warm Barossa climate and the cool Eden Valley climate.

All Yalumba wines have been entirely vegan since the 2012 vintage.

Winemaking

The winery has its own on-site cooperage, the only one of its kind among Australian wineries and one of only five remaining in the world. Fermentation using wild yeasts has been practised for over twenty years. The approach across the entire range is one of minimal intervention, with the stated aim of creating wines that reflect the character of their terroir rather than that of their producer.

Wines

The flagship red wines are The Signature, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, which has been produced continuously since the 1880s and the Octavius, old vine shiraz. And also The Caley, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra and Shiraz from Barossa.

Virgil is the flagship white wine, a single-vineyard Viognier from the Eden Valley, considered the benchmark for this variety in Australia.

Stipple Shiraz is a single-vineyard wine from the Light Pass estate.

Tri-Centenaire Grenache is made from grapes grown on vines dating back to 1889.

Yalumba produces around 30 different wines.