OUR VINEYARDS

We grow and harvest our own grapes at our King Valley and Rutherglen vineyards. Ross Gehrig is also well respected as a vineyard contractor across the King Valley and Rutherglen Wine Regions.

KING VALLEY

Our King Valley Vineyard is situated in Oxley on the banks of the King River, in the lower plains of the King Valley Wine Region. Our 14 acres (6ha) of vineyard is predominately planted on sandy loam soils, over a clay base. The loam has good water holding capacity and the clay base forms a barrier for the vine roots from getting down into the water table. Vines that grow with unlimited water don’t tend to grow premium quality.

Being so close to the river, it’s a bonus, the cooling breeze that arrives along the river at night allows the vines to have a rest, take up some moisture in preparation for the next hot day. This is especially helpful during the summer grape ripening period and provides a great mesoclimate to produce some fine wine grapes. Our vines are grown on different trellis methods that allow the vine to grow and provide a suitable canopy to produce quality wine grapes in the varying environmental conditions, wet weather, hot weather events and the like. Vine varieties each have their own personality so each have to be tailored to suit.

Oxley has a large selection of grape varieties; that allow us to produce many different wines and various styles-some well known and a few other rare birds to keep all interested. Varieties you will find are: Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Muscat petit grains (brown muscat), Gamay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Lagrein, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Durif, Petit Verdot, Cab Franc & Malbec round the lot out!

RUTHERGLEN

The Rutherglen area is obviously well known world wide for fortified wines – the delicious sticky aperas, ports and muscats. Add on the reputation of producing some fine red table wines too, the area is a good one to be involved with, from a vineyard perspective as well as wine making roles.

Gooramadda is a bit like Texas – “everything is bigger” Long rows, lots of vine rows, big flavours and plenty of grapes to harvest come vintage time. A quick walk around the vineyard here is a good fitness walk or run….. or a place first timers to get lost in a maze of vineyard blocks and headlands. Also lends itself to incredible background views for celebrations onsite, especially for rustic country themed weddings.

All our hard work has been recognised with our Rutherglen vineyard has been accredited under Freshcare as an Australian Wine Industry Sustainable practice vineyard in 2024.

Our Rutherglen yineyard is situated East of Rutherglen in Gooramadda it has gentle rising lands up to Mt Ochentyre, which is situated behind our vineyard. The vineyard soils are red loam over shale rocks, this is a site that makes the vines work- the hungry soils aren’t an easy place to grow. Vines that struggle don’t over crop much, thus produce more intense fruit that results in strong flavoursome wines

The Gooramadda site is 200 acres (80ha) with Cabernet Sauvignon, Durif, Muscat and Shiraz spread across the site. The rolling aspects with small “valleys” within some blocks creates different flavour profiles that provide great versatility in the overall blends- rather than all being uniform taste.

Long hot summers here help produce the wines we’re re-known for, so we try to help our vines out by using appropriate trellising system and balanced irrigation to make their life easier. The vines are irrigated with an up to date watering system, ensuring water is delivered to keep the vines happy, but use the minimal amount possible.

Gooramadda is a bit like Texas – “everything is bigger” Long rows, lots of vine rows, big flavours and plenty of grapes to harvest come vintage time. A quick walk around the vineyard here is a good fitness walk or run….. or a place first timers to get lost in a maze of vineyard blocks and headlands.

VINEYARD CONTRACTING SERVICES

If you need assistance with vineyard contracting work from Harvest, Spraying, Slashing, Trimming & Cartage.

Please direct all questions to Ross Gehrig on (03) 5727 3395.

Nairn 680 tow behind harvester * 2, lights for night operation. Fitted with long bow rods,  with many modifications to improve pick quality, speed and minimal vine damage. Many repeat customers are the testimony of the job it performs; we pride on a “full pick to weigh bridge” service, thus to help simplify your grape harvest season in a one-stop contract servicing NE Victoria.  One contact to organise picking, bins, forklifts, transport and associated labour required. Ask for any variations that you require; we’ll try to fit into your requests.

Current, up to date equipment, gps fitted for spraying and harvesting efficiency,  Fendt 309 vario, John Deere 6410 and 5820, Deutz Agroplus *2.Tractors equipped with front linkage/ pto, so some processes can be combined (i.e trim/ slash, slash/spray etc). Ask what’s possible!

Grape bin trailers *5 as required for harvest. Bin trailers can be used in tandem and accept 700kg small bins up to 3 ton grape bins. Plastic 2.5t bins with alloy frame (tippable by fork rotator) available for hire (20 of), 8 * 3.0t stainless bins also.

Two row Whitco hedger, variable width Chris Grow Expanda slasher, front or rear mount Chris grow vinekeeper slasher, Fischer undervine slasher which can slash in between  vines (if irrigation tape is raised) & 2400mm wide  berends flail mower for heavy trash/ prunnings. 

Fungicide wise there’s 3* two row Greentech sprayers , a two row herbicider  & a croplands sardi headed sprayer set up for  olive/ orchard spraying available on request.  All sprayers fitted with auto rate controllers for accurate chemical application.

Munro post driver with hydraulic offset for vineyard use. 

Scania  prime mover truck,  drop deck & 10 pallet A trailer for grape cartage, shifting harvesters, tractors, forklifts and all sprayers (or your machinery or general cartage in off season)

Forklifts: Hyster 3.0 & 6  ton. Linde 7.0t with 3.0ton rotator

case 580 sk backhoe, JGL large diesel  4wd scissor lift  available on specific request.

11,000lt wine tanker and wine storage available too! Ask for particulars to suit your requirements.

Contact Ross directly for any harvesting, vineyard maintenance/ management requests.              e: [email protected]

                             

KING VALLEY 03 5727 3395

RUTHERGLEN 02 6026 8228

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