Ballochdale Estate Vineyard came to be when Garry Neill, a person from a family with a long history of farming and liquor industry association, teamed up with his wife Sara and a group of investor wine enthusiasts, mostly based offshore, to create an entity to produce the highest possible quality wines from this very special site.
We were lucky that in owning the land we had the privilege and time to spend several years researching into assessing the site for its suitability of growing grapes including monitoring of temperatures, taking advice from many experts and a careful analysis of the soils.
The consistent common thread was to plant Pinot Noir.
But back in the year 2000 everyone was planting Sauvignon Blanc. In fact the word was “pee NO noir, sauvignon bank”. However history shows that you must plant what best suits a particular environment and so in went the Pinot Noir and some Sauvignon Blanc to follow. Ballochdale Estate is now fundamentally a contract grape grower, selling premium and ultra premium grapes by the row to some of the finest wineries in the country.
Now 10 years on an exciting moment has arrived. Ballochdale Estate has decided to release it's first Pinot Noir wine on it's own account.