Wine Making

Geoff and Susan Bull first planted vines at this site in 1979. Geoff and Susan developed the site over the next two decades establishing a small winery and tasing area. Freycinet Vineyard won a number of national show awards during this time and the established reputation as one of Australia's premier producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Since 1992, daughter Liny Bull and partner Claudio Radenti have continued the family winemaking tradition with their three children; Giorgio Geoffrey (10 years), Pino Joseph (7 years) and Pia Susan (3 years). Lindy and Claudio are passionate about their nine hectare vineyard and are extremely focussed on maximising quality from it year on year.

The Freycinet Vineyards are beautifully situated on the sloping hillsides of a small valley. The soils are brown demosol on top of Jurassic dolerite, and the combination of aspect, slope, soil and heat summation produces read grapes with unusual depth of colour and ripe flavours. One of Australia's foremost producers of Pinot Noir, with a wholly enviable track record of consistency - rare in such a temperamental variety.

-James Halliday - Australian Wine Companion, 2010.

The cool Tasmanian climate in combination with our unique vineyard site provide ideal conditions for fine, elegant yet powerful wines. Situated on the 42 degrees latitudinal line, the vineyard overlooks the spectacular Freycinet Peninsula and is approximately 100m above sea level and just 20km from the coast. The average annual rainfall is around 70mm (except in drought years).

Our vineyard boasts some features which facilitate the ripening potential of the site. The total size of the vineyard is 9 hectares.

Perched on some gentle slopes in a small sheltered valley, the original Vineyard site has sometimes been described as an amphitheatre and heat trap. This 4.0 Ha amiphitheatre site, comprising The Hill and The Paddock contains the origianl plantings which form the base of our flagship Freycinet range of wines.

The amiphitheatre's slopes provide enhanced sunlight interception and warmth as well as cold air drainage which eliminate menacing late spring frosts. It is not uncommon for our fruit to be harvested two to three weeks earlier than many other Tasmanian vineyards, due to the extra warmth of the site. This can be particularly beneficial, especially in the slightly cooler, wetter and lower sunshine seasons. The surrounding hills also protect against the prevailing westerly winds.

The north facing slope of the amphitheatre has brown dermosol soils over Jurassic dolerite (ie warm, shallow, stony and free draining with clay/loam texture) while the south facing slope that has black vertosol - ie: black, crackling alkaline clay with good water holding capacity.

The Amphitheatre Site

In 1995, a second vineyard was added to form the base of our popular Louis range of wines - comprising the blended lighter, sweeter Riesling, the unwooded Chardonnay and the lighter, earlier drinking Pinot Noir. The 4 Ha Louis vineyard site was planted 300 meters away, lower down the valley adjacent to the original Amiphitheatre Hill site, on a more gentle north to east facing slope.

A third vineyard site (Synotts) comprising 1 Ha was planted in 1995 and is 4kms west of the amiphitheatre site. This is a classic continental climate site ie: considerably cooler in winter and warmer in summer and forms the base of our award winning Radenti Sparkling Pinot Noir Chardonnay. The Louis and Synotts site have brown dermosol soils.

Vineyard Shots Vineyard Shots2

Grape Type	Total Ha Planted	Clone Type	Vineyard Site
Pinot Noir	2.94	G5V15, 114, 115, 777 G5V15, 114, 115 G5V15	Amphitheatre Hill Louis Synotts
Chardonnay	4.0	II0V3, G9V7	Amphitheatre Hill Amphitheatre Paddock Louis Synotts
Riesling	1.22	F8V13, D2V3	Amphitheatre Hill Louis
Cabernet Sauvignon	0.51	G9V3, BX5186	Amphitheatre Hill
Merlot	0.35	D3V14	Amphitheatre Paddock
Schonburger	0.06		Louis

All our vine stocks have been sourced from the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries who in turn recieved them from the CSIRO as disease -free clonal material.

Each vineyard site has been setup on a Lyre trellis system except for Synotts, which is on an adapted Sylvos system that provides frost free, disease free conditions as well as enabling easier pruning. Geoff Bull became convinced of the benefits of the Lyre trellis system having had the privilege of attending a workshop with Graham Wiltshire of the then Heemskerk winery who explained the adapted carbonneau split-trellis system developed by Professor Alain Carbonneau to provide better quality grapes with easier pruning.

In 1993, we commencing using screw caps, initially for the Freycinet Riesling and progressively for each of the wines, so that by 2005 all our wines were bottled with screw caps, except for the Radenti Sparkling.

The key and our goal in the vineyard is to grow a moderate yeild of fully ripened healthy fruit from well balanced vines. Considerable manual work is carried out in the form of hand pruning, shoot thinning/positioning, leaf plucking and hand picking in order to achieve this. The vine root systems are well established now, virtually eliminating the need to irrigate.

The Vineyard yeilds approximately 60-80 tons of fruit depending on the season and all the wine is vinified in our rustic looking Winery equipped with state of the art equipment. The winemaker's thumbprint is minimal in order to showcase the fruit, the Vineyard's terroir and the season's characteristics. Our wines are 100% grown, vinified and bottled on our estate with passion and dedication and in the spirit of true Vignerons.