Winemaker Andrew La Nauze of Oxford Landing at Waikerie looks outside the square

ANDREW La Nauze is Oxford Landing’s winemaker, but more recently he’s become the poster boy for the brand.

Oxford Landing - Andrew La Nauze

ANDREW La Nauze may be Oxford Landing’s winemaker, but more recently he’s become the unexpected poster boy for the brand.

Splayed across the winery’s website is a photo of Andrew, guitar slung across his back, boots grazing the dust, looking every bit the rock star more than a mild-mannered winemaker.

“There’s a lot of clichéd shots of vineyards and we needed some photos for the winery,” the 38-year-old said.

“The photographer asked me about my hobbies and I told him I played guitar, so they asked me to bring it in. I said ‘If you think it will sell more wine, I’ll do it’.”

The strumming also occasionally comes in handy for corporate functions at the vineyard, located in the South Australian Mallee at Waikerie, as well as at the winery about an hour away at Nuriootpa.

The 260ha vineyard, which also sources grapes from nearby vineyards, sells 700,000 cases a year, with much of that sold to the UK, where it is ranked No. 7 in the top 10 Australian brands sold in Britain.

Oxford Landing’s vineyard was first planted in 1958 by Wyndham Hill-Smith as part of the Yalumba family label, which also includes Jansz and Pewsey Vale.

Poster boy: Andrew La Nauze who stars on the winery’s website.

It was originally planted to supply Yalumba with grapes for table wines, port, sherry and brandy varieties such as doradillo, palomino and sultana — of which there is one original row still standing.

Since the Oxford Landing brand was launched in 1992 it has branched out into its most popular variety sauvignon blanc, which is followed by chardonnay, then merlot and a blend of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, with pinot grigio predicted to be the next big wine for the brand.

Andrew — who started with Yalumba in 2004 and moved to Oxford Landing in 2012 — said the new varieties came on the back of the vineyard’s own nursery, started in the ’70s, to grow root stock for grafting scions.

With Waikerie semi-arid, yield is about 25 tonnes to the hectare for whites and 20 tonnes for reds.

Andrew said the 260ha block varies from red sandy loam, quite sandy, to exposed rocks with a base of limestone and with topography varying from flats to hollows and dips.

Right track: Andrew La Nauze driving into the winery.

For this reason, the vineyard is broken down into 2ha blocks, managed according to soil, topography and variety, managing irrigation, fertiliser and canopy to suit.

So, for instance, shiraz won’t produce well on deep sands, preferring harder, rockier areas.

Sauvignon blanc needs dense canopies to protect it from the strong summer suns so they push irrigation earlier in the season to ensure early canopy growth, which protects the delicate fruit.

The Mallee receives up to 255mm of rain annually and Oxford Landing, on the Murray River, applies best-practice standards in its irrigation, with an annual water usage of 4-6 megalitres per hectare, depending on natural rainfall.

Andrew said the use of rootstocks was particularly important in their climate, with ramsey (Vitis Champinii) the rootstock of choice for white varieties because of its natural vigour, nematode resistance, salt and drought tolerance.

He said drip irrigation was installed about 15 years ago to replace sprinklers.

“We’ve also got trials where we haven’t irrigated areas of the vineyard, chardonnay and shiraz, for a couple of years and we see how far we can push the vines,” Andrew said.

“The Hill-Smith family have always taken the view that this needs to be a sustainable vineyard.”

Vine time: Andrew La Nauze walking among the 260ha of vines at Oxford Landing.

In 2007 the Hill-Smith’s bought an adjoining 600ha of farmland, on which they have planted 200,000 native trees.

Damage from winter frosts are minimised with frost fans on early bursting varieties such as chardonnay, in late August and early September.

Pruning is done mechanically from May to July with harvest from the end of January to mid-March.

Being semi-arid, the vineyard has low disease pressure with a minimal spray program for powdery and downy mildew.

With the main pressure coming from weeds, the vineyard has an undervine herbicide program, with minimal mid-row tillage to promote a habitat for beneficial insects and to increase soil carbon.

In a new patch of vines, being organically farmed, alongside undervine ploughing they are trialling saltbush as a mid-row cover crop to prevent weeds.

This minimal use of sprays is crucial for the winemaking process at the Nuriootpa winery, which includes a considerable reliance on wild ferments.

He said all their pinot grigio used wild ferments, as well as their viognier, and smaller amounts of chardonnay and sauvignon blanc.

Andrew said the wild ferment followed their general winemaking philosophy which doesn’t “follow trends”.