The McLaren Vale is one of the great and oldest names of Australian wine. The birthplace of wine in South Australia, it lies just south of Adelaide and offers a multiplicity of soils which bask under a benign Mediterranean climate.
For decades it has been lauded for its ability to produce brilliance from an array of noble varietals – notably rich but refined Shiraz.
McLaren Vale’s reputation as a wine producing area dates back to the late 1830s and it takes its name from either (depending who you believe) John McLaren or David McLaren of the South Australia Company. As with so much of Australian wine its instigators were recent immigrants; notably two English farmers from the county of Devon, William Colton and Charles Thomas Hewett. Drawn to the area by its fertile soils and the availability of fresh water, it was here that the two men established adjoining farms that would become the Oxenberry Farm. Their focus wasn’t on vines but on cereals and cattle. It was John Reynell who would establish McLaren Vale’s first vineyard property in 1838.
As McLaren Vale’s reputation as a Wine Region grew, fresh immigrants from post-war Italy were attracted to the region, due to its Mediterranean Climate. This latest influx bought with them olives and a food culture that has added so much to the region’s reputation as a center of gastronomy together with new vines and methods of production. These have subsequently become woven into the fabric of the area and are now adding fresh vitality into this classic region. Today the Region has over 7,500 hectares under vine.
Overlying soils range from loamy sands underpinned by everything from yellow clay to lime and some sites of friable loams. The one thing these soils have in common is that they are fairly free draining and as such they are perfectly suited to the production of top quality grapes. McLaren Vale’s Mediterranean climate is characterised by warm summers, moderate winters, winter-dominated rainfall, low relative humidity and relatively high evaporation. McLaren Vale is roughly triangular in shape and bordered on three sides – Adelaide to the north, the Mt Lofty Ranges to the east and south, and the Gulf St Vincent to the west. The proximity of Mt Lofty and the Gulf of St Vincent play a very important role in moderating the climate of our region and are largely responsible for many of the meso and micro climatic differences.
