Hello from autumnal Coonawarra.

Well what a year 2020 is turning out to be so far.  We are well into vintage, albeit a much smaller crop due to the poor fruit set last spring.  Our growers in the Riverland, the Limestone Coast, Victoria and Tasmania all have reduced crops.  We all fortunately escaped the ravages of drought and fire, so feel very privileged to be making wine this year.  The season is quite late too, a bit like the old days.

We have a wonderful vintage crew - Fran Bartosek (pictured with Sue Bell above) has joined the team, a local girl who has several vintages under her belt and studying winemaking through Charles Sturt part time and nurturing her one year old son.  

Stephen Jones (pictured above) a film maker who has had screenings of 'El Mar Mi Alma' and 'True Flowers from this Painted World' at Bellwether from Lennox Head is helping with the harvest, enjoying days that start feeding the chickens, cooking sour dough, plunging ferments and eating from the garden in the evening with a glass of wine by the fire.  This week two more people join us, one from Collector wines in Canberra and the other from Savatarre in Beechworth - two areas hard hit by bushfires this summer so made the tough decision to not make wine this year.  We are grateful to have them and will be sure to learn something from each other and share some good wines and meals together.

The repercussions of the impact of Covid-19 are completely unknown to us at this time, but it seems hospitality and tourism will be hit hard.  As a response we are asking you to help us through the next 6 months and hopefully we help you too.

Call it a 'self isolation' survival plan - you get wine and don't need to leave your house, we continue to sell wine and keep people employed.  

We would send you a dozen wines to start (in case you are housebound for a few weeks) including a bottle of Collector and Savatarre to help them out.  Then for the next six months we would send you 6 bottles of wine each month.  We would keep it varied and seasonal, you could select predominantly red or white or a mixture.
By helping us - we will help you - with a good price and FREE delivery.   

(See the links to our secure online store below)

Hopefully in six months things will have improved, you will have enjoyed our generosity and us your ongoing support!

Let's get through this together!

Sue Bell