General

Our main aim is to grow varieties that suit our "terroire", to produce fruit that makes excellent wine, and to care for and nurture the environment.

Planning

We first sought advice from Dr John Gladstones, who is a scientist of immense knowledge and integrity, to guide us in the varieties to plant.

Dr Gladstones suggested our climate characteristics were similar to parts of McLaren Vale in South Australia, Rutherglen in Victoria and Ferguson Valley here in W.A.

Also similar in climate is the southern French areas of Chateauneuf du Pape and even more so, the Douro Valley in Portugal.

Varieties

We now have over 50 acres planted to wine grapes and they are all progressing well. One of our key management issue is vigour control as the conditions mean most plants just want to grow. Premium wine usually comes from lower yielding vines, so we need to stress them at times. There are 4 categories of varieties planted:

Seasons

The vineyard is changing constantly with the changing of the seasons.

Summer Gallery

Autumn Gallery

Winter Gallery

Spring Gallery

Orondo Wine

We are humble farmers and gardeners and are not nearly clever enough to be wine makers. We make a tiny quantity of hobby wine at Orondo, but only to help us learn how to be better viticulturalists, to experiment on different grape growing techniques, and to feed the habits of our friends.

Our grapes are on contract to Palandri Winery until 2006, so to enjoy our grapes you will need to buy Palandri wines.