Engaging new expressions of wine from ancient vines – even when the Ashes are on.
Hewitson’s Estate lies along the banks of the Para River, in the heart of the Barossa Valley on the historic Seppeltsfield Road.
Historically, this strip has produced some of Barossa’s (and Australia’s) finest red wines.
Old vine magic.
Old Garden Mourvèdre Vineyard
Planted in 1853, by Friedrich Koch, The Old Garden is renowned as the oldest Mourvèdre vines on Earth. Just eight rows of these dry grown, pre-phylloxera tri-centenarian, Barossa Ancestor vines still flourish on their original roots today.
Monopole Shiraz Vineyard
This vineyard is sourced exclusively from one 1853 Shiraz vine found in the middle of The Old Garden. Over many years we harvested the buds from this one Shiraz vine and grafted them onto roots growing at the winery. Today we have one hectare of an ancient pre-Phylloxera ‘Sélection Clonale’ exclusively from this 1853 vine with its own unique flavour and tannin profile.
These vineyards are irreplaceable.
A state of the art winery.
The Hewitson winery brings together state of the art with traditional winemaking practices and a soft footprint on the land. Attention in the vineyard with respect to drainage, soil health and biodiversity is coupled with attention in the winery with respect to cleanliness and temperature control allowing minimalist intervention winemaking.
The best fruit deserves the best oak to ensure structure and complexity for both young and old wines. We chose to only use French oak for its subtle but elegant influence on each of our cuvées and oak is chosen depending on toasting level, forrest source and age to suit the wines in which it will be aged in.
Sustainability.
A thoughtful and light footprint in the vines and in the winery.
Hewitson is a member of Sustainable Wine Growing Australia - a national program for producers, committed to making wine sustainably.
Acknowledging the need for winemakers to decrease their carbon footprint not just as a holistic responsibility towards planet Earth but also demand by consumers globally, the Hewitson winery team have passionately committed to environmental sustainability.
Symbiotic.
This is an ongoing pursuit underpinned by using a symbiotic approach to viticulture and winemaking, adopting the latest methodology to minimise electricity use, carbon footprint, water use and waste generation.
Use of recycled water is a practice that benefits both the vineyard and winery alike. We take rainwater used for cleaning and pass it through our water recycling plant to enable us to use in vineyards and fields. These practices benefit the native grasses and trees, leading to increased natural absorption of carbon into the ground, eliminating erosion and cooling our vineyards, thus significantly improving the quality of our wine.
The winery has a state of the art solar technology such that the winery rarely draws electricity from the grid.
Biodiversity.
Ongoing soil health management to enhance grape quality and yields but also to foster biodiversity. This involves eradicating weeds, building organic matter and then permanently mulching under vines to encourage biodiversity.
River red gum re-planting on the Para River bordering the Estate vineyard has restored the Estate’s river flats to pre-1800’s settlement conditions. The strip is alive with local wildlife along with providing a sink for atmospheric carbon.