Wrattonbully

The Wrattonbully wine region is situated in the southeastern part of South Australia in the designated Limestone Coast area, north of Coonawarra. As the area name suggests, limestone predominates here with the terra rossa soils that are so famous in Coonawarra over it.

The first wine grapes were planted in the late 1960s but it wasn’t until the 1990s that many winemakers from the surrounding areas came to grow here, attracted by the excellent soils and elevated sites, as well as Wrattonbully’s other attributes – good quality underground water for irrigation, a long growing season and a cool climate.

Now about 2,600 hectares of vines are planted on gently hilly slopes at 75 to 100 metres. Lots of varieties are grown, the four most widely planted being Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot and Chardonnay.

The climate overall is temperate, so well-suited to the production of high-quality reds. As such, it is something between its neighbours Coonawarra and Padthaway – slightly warmer than the former and cooler than the latter. The risk of disease to the vines is slightly lower than both other regions since humidity is a bit less, while the risk of frost is significantly less due to the slopes and elevation which facilitates cold air flow to provide protection.

One thing that put Wrattonbully on the wine map was when in 2003 Brian Croser of Petaluma in the Adelaide Hills, Jean-Michel Cazes of Chateau Lynch Bages in Pauillac, Bordeaux, and Bollinger champagne jointly purchased the region’s oldest vineyard and renamed it Tapanappa.