Some sites hold you in their thrall, plain and simple. You stumble into them as if enchanted, and if the wines measure up – if the quality is flawless and the wines express the magic that you’ve seen, heard, felt among the vines – there’s no turning back.
Dalwhinnie, the eight-hectare site perched high in Victoria’s Pyrenees wine-growing region, is such a site. Julian Langworthy fell under its spell from the moment he first set eyes on it. “It was just, you know, nestled in the mountains in this beautiful amphitheatre bowl and this lovely, architecturally designed winery up on the hill. And I was like, ‘F***ing hell,’” he told the Vininspo! podcast.
Dalwhinnie’s class has been noted for decades, but it has taken the love and attention of Langworthy and his team to raise it beyond its former glory. “They’re the most beautiful wines, and it’s been a lovely journey of discovery, helping to celebrate and lift those wines back up to where they should be,” says Jules. “The current releases of Dalwhinnie are wonderful. I feel hugely honoured to be able to make wines from a site like Dalwhinnie with such amazing history, and such a great cool verve.”
Word is getting out about the vineyard’s beautiful renaissance, but to taste and share these wines is truly to believe. Campbell Mattinson calls the Chardonnay “a benchmark for the region”. His Wine Advocate counterpart, Erin Larkin, declares: “These are special wines,” and spills forth superlatives such as beautiful, super and outstanding to describe them.
“So, Dal is one of the great ones; one of the great unique Australian sites, and I’m lucky to be part of it at the moment,” says Jules.
We urge you to be part of it, too.
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