WHAT WE DO

Great Wines Made In The Vineyard. At Tallis Wine we subscribe to the theory that great wines are made in the vineyard. The quality of a finished wine is dependent on the quality of the grapes from which they have been made. If the grapes in the vineyard aren’t great then regardless of what the winemaker does, he or she will never be able to produce an outstanding wine. Because of this, we spend an enormous amount of time in our vineyard, checking the progress of the grapes as they form and ripen, the grapevine canopy, and the mesoclimate of flora and fauna around the vines.

Uniquely Dookie. One of the joys of winemaking is in the appreciation of the uniqueness that regionality bring to wine. We love that our wines are uniquely “Dookie” in style and reflect the rich red soils and regional terrior.

Fantastic Dirt. Rich red volcanic loam going deep into the earth. It is this quality and its impact on our grapes that we aim to preserve with our winemaking. So rather than beat our wines around with every new age technique on the market we tend towards old world traditional winemaking practicesincluding open fermenters for our reds, hand plunging and even foot trampling in some wines to add flavour complexity and textural qualities.

Minimal Input. The Tallis philosophy of treading lightly extends to the minimal use of additives in the winemaking process, which protects those wine lovers who are sensitive to chemicals in wine. French and American oak barriques are used with restraint to offer subtle influence while allowing the wines to shine through.

Handcrafted. Our red wines are handcrafted in the property’s small converted horse stable by Dick and Tanya, in consultation with Wine Network’s Gary Baldwin. Our philosophy of quality above all else means that we have strict limits on the amount of wine we produce from our vines.

The Bottom Line is that if we aren’t happy with a particular wine, you won’t be seeing it. From time to time vintage conditions may restrict us from producing wines which meet our quality standard, consequently the number of cases we produce will always be limited. Being a family owned independent winery we tend to heed the forces of nature over the forces of the markets.