Pearwood Wines Piccadilly Vineyard

This is the venture of the Swaly family (Bernard, Sandra and Andrew), which has a longer history than the year of establishment would suggest. When Bernard was working for the CSIRO Land and Water Division, he grew raspberries on what had previously been a vegetable market garden, but changed to vines after the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, planting chardonnay which was sold to Petaluma. In 1999 Yalumba took over the purchase agreement, and supplied the high quality Burgundy clone 76 and 95, now part of the 2.1ha plantings. Senior Yalumba winemaker Louisa Rose believes the character of the chardonnay is quite similar to that of Tasmania thanks to the cool, quite wet site climate of Pearwood. In 2005 the grape surplus led to a small-volume production for home consumption, but as from '07 the quantities (while limited) are of commercial size. -JAMES HALLIDAY