Pewsey Vale

The origin of the Australian winery in the Eden Valley area (South Australia) lies in 1841, when the Englishman Joseph Gilbert (1800-1881), who had immigrated two years earlier, bought over 6,000 hectares of land. He planted a table grape variety and pressed his first wine from it. In 1847 he began experimenting with several varieties and planted the first significant vineyard in the Eden Valley. In the 1920s there was a decline and later the vineyard came into the possession of Geoffrey Angas Parsons. He sold the vineyards to Wyndham Hill Smith (1909-1990), chairman of the Hill Smith family, owners of the Yalumba wine multinational. Yalumba reactivated the vineyards and planted them with Riesling. This variety is ideally suited to the altitude and the cool climate. They built on old clones that had their origins back to the famous winegrowing pioneer James Busby (1802-1871). Today, the vineyards cover 25 hectares, which are exclusively planted with Riesling. Long-lived wines are produced under the appellations "Riesling" and (from high altitude) "The Contours Riesling". The winery used screw caps instead of natural corks as early as the 1970s and can look back on a long experience in this field. The winemaker is Louisa Rose, who is also responsible for Hill Smith Estate (also in Eden Valley), which also belongs to the Yalumba empire.