Snobs Creek Wines

In the 1860s, well-respected West Indian shoemaker ‘Black’ Brookes occupied a cottage at the bridge over Cataract Creek. After he passed away in the late 1880s the creek was renamed Snobs Creek, ‘snob’ being an old English term for cobbler (shoe repairer). The original vineyard, founded by Alex Gillon, was situated where Snobs Creek joins the Goulburn River, 5km below the Lake Eildon wall. In 2019 Alex’s son Marcus Gillon moved operations to Heathcote, with an all-new cellar door and winery. The vineyards, on the slopes of Mount Carmel, were to be planted in '20 but Covid intervened: new plantings of shiraz, nebbiolo, cabernet sauvignon and malbec are planned. -JAMES HALLIDAY