Grant established Valli in 1998 after eighteen years of winemaking experience in the USA, Australia, France, and New Zealand. His philosophy was to highlight the differences between subregions in Otago. Grant’s accomplishments are well known in the wine world and he is credited with winning the Best Pinot Noir Trophy at a major International Wine Competition in London an unprecedented four times – a feat achieved by no other winemaker in the world. Over the past 25 years he has made the first wines for a number of iconic Otago wineries, but now the serious focus is on his own creation. Born in Otago, Grant helped establish Pine Ridge Winery and Domaine Napa in California. He was lured back to Otago in 1993 by the promise of large and plentiful trout, clean air, fewer people and the potential he saw for Otago wines, Grant signed on as winemaker for Gibbston Valley Wines.

Valli’s estate vineyard in Gibbston was the first in the valley to be planted in the true north-to-south direction, it maximises the amount of sunlight hours the vines receive, contributing dramatically to the uniform ripening of fruit, a critical factor in Pinot Noir quality. A key factor in quality Pinot Noir from such a cool area is long hang time, that is, the amount of time the grapes are on the vine; this allows them to develop elegance and complexity of flavour.

The location of Valli’s Bannockburn Vineyard is only 20km from Gibbston in the Cromwell basin but the difference in climate is responsible for creating markedly different wines. The Bannockburn wines reflect this warmer area by displaying darker fruits, by being denser, more powerful and with longevity based more on their tannin structure, as opposed to Gibbston wines which are based more on their acidity.

Valli's Bendigo Pinot Noir is the newest addition to the Valli stable of Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs. A number of years ago, Grant was involved in the largest ever plantings at Bendigo, across 5 different sites, and quickly identified Chinaman's Terrace as his favourite. The higher elevation of this site means slightly cooler temperatures, which is important in these warmer sub regions, and good airflow, helping to prevent rots and mold. The wines from this very warm part of Otago have been described as big friendly beasts. They are dark, rich, lush wines capturing the rock-reflected heat and ripeness of this special site. Having now completed over 40 vintages throughout the greater expanse of Central Otago's superlative sites, Grant looks forward to the next 40. Valli Vineyards are yet to reveal the full bounty of Central Otago’s extraordinary potential.

Valli's Waitaki property is in New Zealand’s newest and most exciting wine growing region, like Burgundy, the soils are limestone based. After only a few commercial vintages, there is already an incredible consistency in the perfume and minerality of the wines. Slightly cooler than Central Otago, the Waitaki Valley should not be cropped as heavily, and therefore Valli’s Waitaki Vineyard is close planted at 5000 vines per hectare with early ripening clones from Dijon and Pommard.

Marius' winemakers are always striving to improve the quality of the fruit from their exquisite single vineyard and the grapes are now sequentially hand-picked from the various sections, over a period of 3-4 weeks, to ensure that the fruit is as close as possible to perfect at the time of harvest.

Marius Wines are now made at winemaker Mark Day's boutique winery at Blewitt Springs. Small open fermenters, traditional basket pressing and extended barrel fermentation are the tools of his craft. Mark is an integral part of our success.

The Marius vineyard, which looks out across the McLaren Vale / Willunga basin and out to the Gulf of St. Vincent is blessed with a mild temperate climate and complex ironstone soils. The precious grapegrowing parcel is situated on rising ground to the south-east of McLaren Vale township, ideally positioned to take advantage of both the maritime climatic influence and the cooling gully breezes on summer evenings. The vineyard is small, being only four acres of Shiraz.

The soils range from clay through ironstone and limestone to alluvial gravels. The philosophy at Marius is to grow flavour and produce powerful wines. This is achieved by passionate and fastidious vineyard practices combining to produce low yields of small bunches of flavoursome small berries with a high skin to juice ratio.

All fruit is hand picked and this is done sequentially over approximately three weeks to ensure that all the grapes are as near as possible to perfect when picked. Mid-rows are not cultivated or tilled, the natural grasses and weeds are slashed, no pesticides are used and the industrious worm population is growing rapidly.

Mention South Australian wines and people immediately think of the famous Coonawarra and Barossa Valley regions, another South Australian region however, is growing in prominence. Located south east of Adelaide and north of the Coonawarra, Padthaway is already inhabited by the big names in Australian wine, but the region is also an attractive prospect for private producers eager to develop unique regional wines. One producer in an excellent position to do just this is Browns of Padthaway. With an established vineyard, the family company has been known among wine circles as a producer of premium grapes supplying larger wine companies.

The Brown family has been established in the Padthaway region for over 40 years and along with other agricultural ventures planted their first grape vines 32 years ago. Nestled in amongst well known wine companies the likes of Fosters, Orlando Wyndham and BRL Hardys, Browns of Padthaway is a rare, privately owned Padthaway winery. In 1995 the Brown family began releasing its own estate labelled wines. Donald Brown, a fourth generation Yorke Peninsula farmer and his wife Glenda saw the potential of Padthaway and moved to there in 1959.

The Padthaway region has a cool climate and is characterised by its terra rossa soil and an abundance of very soft artesian water. The word Padthaway is aboriginal for good water. The Browns originally purchased 290 hectares of land, which had a small proven irrigation capability, and the land holding of the family is now 3000 hectares. According to Donald Brown they didn’t plant vines initially and were involved in small seed production, cereals and sheep. It didn’t take long, however, to realise that the soil and climate along with the irrigation presented ideal conditions for grape production. They were one of the original producers to establish a vineyard in the area.

Browns of Padthaway is very much a family organisation, with Donald and Glenda, their daughter Sue and her husband Michael Schreier, son Andrew and his wife Lisa and son David and his wife Caroline, all playing active roles in the business. This includes viticulture, vineyard management, sales, marketing and all facets of company management. The Brown’s wine exploits have involved supplying premium fruit to larger Australian wine companies as well as grape harvest contracting and grape transportation. The whole family agrees that producing their own wine label has been a dream for some time and they are very proud of what has been achieved with Browns of Padthaway wines.

Browns Of Padthaway have two vineyard sites that lie in the heart of the Padthaway region. The original vineyard was planted in 1970 and is 150 hectares in size and is located 12 km south of Padthaway at Keppoch. Varieties planted include Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdelho. The Vineyards are predominately planted on the famed terra rossa soil as well as some sandy loams over limestone. These soils are free draining and fertile. Although some vines are now over three decades old, Padthaway is a modern region with the latest planting, trellising and harvesting techniques in evidence. The Padthaway Valley Vineyard was developed in 1997. Situated 12 kilometres to the north of the existing vineyard, this vineyard is now approximately 170 ha in size and varieties planted comprise of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

Grapes are hand picked in the vineyard and transported direct to the winery. At the winery further hand selection takes place discarding any unwanted fruit before transferring to the press. All purity of texture and flavour is retained by whole bunch pressing for all white wines in order to minimise skin contact resulting in juice with fine texture and maximum flavour. The Estate's winemakers see themselves as “guardians” of the grape and adopt a low key non interventionist approach to winemaking.

There are three company vineyards, two are situated at the foot of the Wither Hills and one at high altitude. The Summer Valley Vineyard lies directly to the north in a gently sloping valley and is planted primarily to Sauvignon Blanc and also four different clones of Pinot Noir. The soils are primarily Wither Hill soils with gravel, stone and loess silt deposits.

The second company vineyard is the Cob Cottage Vineyard, situated just to the north of the Wither Hills and fronting onto State Highway, 3kms south of Blenheim township. As well as Sauvignon Blanc this vineyard is planted to various aromatic varieties as well as being close planted with Syrah. Both these vineyards are in a “dry” area , with rain shadows created by the surrounding hills and receive minimal annual rainfall.

The exciting Delta Vineyard, more recently planted in the middle of the Wairau Valley, is one of the highest elevation vineyards in Marlborough. This vineyard sits in a God given perfectly formed North facing bowl, the elevation of the site was formed thousands of years ago with the movement of the nearby seismic plates resulting in an uplifting of this section of the valley. This elevation with low vigour soil, comprising shallow topsoil with some gravels and clay loams, results in a long and cool growing season, far cooler than the lower valley floor. The main hillside has been planted with ten different clones of Pinot Noir on various low vigour rootstock.

There is also a precious small North facing slope with Pinot Gris, again with the intensive close planting. In order to manage this special vineyard, a very narrow (98cm) wide tractor is employed to negotiate the narrow rows, and canopy sprays are effected by helicopter. A very special vineyard requires intense dedication.