De Bortoli Wines keeps it in the family in the Yarra Valley

THE De Bortoli winery in the Yarra Valley holds two things in the highest regard; family and taste.

THE De Bortoli winery in the Yarra Valley holds two things in the highest regard: family and taste.

“We don’t want our wines to taste like they come from the Barossa,” Stephen Webber says.

“There’s nothing wrong with Barossa wines, but we want our wines to taste like the Yarra Valley. It’s a pretty important thing called terroir, which means the flavour of the place, and we try pretty hard to make sure our wines taste like they come from here.”

Stephen is chief winemaker at De Bortoli’s Yarra Valley winery, one of Australia’s largest family owned wineries.

He and wife Leanne De Bortoli have run the Yarra Valley winery since 1989, operating a successful restaurant and producing award-winning wines at the same time.

FAMILY TIES

LEANNE has been surrounded by wine all her life, growing up opposite the main De Bortoli winery in Bilbul, near Griffith, which produces about 60,000 tonnes of grapes every year.

The winery was started in 1928 by Leanne’s grandfather, Vittorio De Bortoli, after he left his village in northern Italy to migrate to Australia.

“He came from a very large family with a very small holding, and being the youngest member he thought, ‘well, if I want a better life for my family maybe I just need to look somewhere else’,” she says.

Leanne’s father, Deen, then took over with the aim of expanding it, ­before passing it on to his children.

“My older brother Darren and two younger brothers Kevin and Victor took over the Bilbul winery from my father, but my mother is still up there and she’s the one who wields the big stick,” Leanne says.

RICH PICKINGS

SINCE that humble start, De Bortoli Wines has continued to grow and is now a multi-million-dollar business, with a fourth generation of De Bortolis waiting to carry Vittorio’s legacy on.

De Bortoli Wines owns a winery in the Hunter Valley and a large vineyard in Victoria’s King Valley, as well as Stephen and Leanne’s Yarra Valley winery.

The Dixons Creek vineyard, which is north of Yarra Glen, covers more than 240ha and produces 4000 tonnes of grapes each year, making it one of the region’s largest vineyards.

Stephen, who was named the 2007 Winemaker of the Year by Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine, mostly grows pinot noir, shiraz, syrah, pinot grigio and pinot gris grapes at the vineyard.

While the Yarra Valley vineyard pales in comparative size to the behemoth Bilbul vineyard, Stephen says the smaller winery means he can try things that are a little different.

“If we want to give something a go, there’s that preparedness to say, ‘yep, let’s try just a little bit’, see how it goes and if it works do some more and if doesn’t graft it to something else,” he says.

“People don’t realise we grew up on these traditional French varieties and that’s what people now think of when they think of wine, because when they were planted nobody was looking at what Italy was doing.”

EURO TRUNKS

STEPHEN said a lot of grape varieties that grew well in Australia grew well in “the Mediterranean, Italy and the south of Spain, and some of those places have similar climates to Griffith, Mildura or Renmark”.

“So it might turn out that while chardonnay or cabernet are grown in those areas, they may not be the best suited to that particular area, it might be a fiano or favorita instead,” Leanne says.

“It’s the same with us here in the Yarra Valley, we’re finding that the sangiovese is just awesome here and so is the pinot gris ­opposed to a pinot grigio,” Stephen says.

“So I think it’s pretty ­important to continue trying some stuff viticulturally that’s a bit different.

“If you make something weird and wonderful everybody wants it because it’s small and boutique-y.”