Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
Situated in the heart of South Australia's beautiful Clare Valley, Wakefield has become one of Australia's best loved and most trusted wineries. The tale of Wakefield's wine-making goes back a few years – three generations in fact, and all began with Bill Taylor Senior, and his love of a certain Bordeaux wine.
Originally wine merchants in Sydney, a passion for wine was all part of being a Taylor, and in particular, for the famous French Clarets such as Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux's Medoc region. It was this long held fascination for these wines which inspired the family’s foray into winemaking, and provides the inspiration and winemaking philosophy behind all Wakefield's winemaking today – to produce premium wines of exceptional and comparable quality in Australia.
It was a single wine - a first growth Bordeaux - which inspired Bill Taylor to take the plunge and to purchase a block of land in the Clare Valley and set about crafting a quality wine, which reflected the terroir and could rival its 'old world' Cabernet Sauvignons.
Almost four decades later, the company remains family owned and the philosophy unchanged. Admittedly, the winery now plants a little more than just cabernet sauvignon – with nearly 750ha of vineyards in the Clare Valley, the family excels in a number of different varieties to make up its extensive, award winning portfolio – from terrific value, everyday drinking wines to the finest Australian wines at the pinnacle of the Wakefield portfolio.
And the same philosophy runs religiously through the family tree today. Following his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, third generation winemaker Mitchell Taylor is well aware of his heritage, and passionate in its continuance. A blend of 'old world' estate philosophy and 'new world' winemaking innovation, combined with an almost fanatical attention to detail and obsession with quality, has kept this dream alive, and resulted in wines of tremendous style and quality.
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”