Cape Grace Wines is as much about nuance and art as it is skills and passion.
Every bottle begins in our small, family-run vineyard – a unique 'forest' site where native trees shield the vines and biodiversity thrives. Low-intervention techniques and a patient, hands-on approach allow us to capture the character of each vintage and the nuances of our site's blessed growing conditions.
Our first vintage in 2000 produced just 500 dozen bottles. Today, depending on the season, we make between 1,800 and 2,000 dozen – all estate-grown and vinified on site. The majority of our wines are sold through our cellar door and directly to our loyal community around Australia.
White varieties are harvested in the cool early hours to preserve delicate fruit aromatics, then gently pressed with free-run juice and light pressings fermented in a mix of new, one- and two-year-old French oak from a select range of coopers. Meticulous hygiene, temperature control, and minimal interference allow purity of flavour to shine.
For the reds, harvest is determined by flavour and tannin ripeness. Grapes are hand-picked, sorted, and fermented in small open-top fermenters, then hand-plunged for 7-10 days and left on skins for gentle tannin extraction. Basket pressing follows, with the wines then matured in French barriques for 12–18 months before final blending and bottling.
Our very first wine – the 2000 Cape Grace Cabernet Sauvignon – set the tone early, taking out Best Wine at the 2001 Sheraton Wine Awards. It was a precedent-setting win that laid the foundation for all that followed.
