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Spotlight on Mount Gambier

Let me introduce you to a place close to my heart.

A world of geological wonders and unique wines await in the lesser-known region of Mount Gambier, on South Australia’s Limestone Coast. There, a dormant volcano provides the backdrop to a coastal region coined as Australia’s Mount Etna. Katie Spain explores the place she once called home and unearths a thrilling future in grape and wine production.   

A magical place where the landscape surrounding the small, regional city of Mount Gambier is an evocative mix of farmland, vineyards, forests, dormant volcanoes, and sinkholes. Below the earth’s surface, lava caves and aquifers lie still and silent. It is the traditional land of the Bunganditj people, a place where mixed farming produces wonderful milk, fruit, vegetables, wagyu beef, and a bounty of crayfish awaits.  

Mount Gambier was where I spent my teenage years on a large dairy farm. When we weren’t working, we’d frequent sinkholes (a limestone-formed hole filled with water) to escape the summer heat.  

I didn’t know it then, but the Limestone Coast is also prime land for grape growing. Fast forward 20-something years and an exciting wine scene is quietly unfolding. As one of the coolest regions in South Australia, the temperate maritime climate and cooling sea breezes make for elegant wines, in particular pinot noir and chardonnay. 

As wine regions go, Mount Gambier is a relatively new kid on the block. The first commercial vines were planted there in 1982 by Sandy Haig and his wife Helen.

For his efforts, Sandy an honorary member of the Mount Gambier Regional Grape Growers Association which was formed 2001, by a small but passionate group of growers who saw potential in the region.

 

The number of growers (approximately a dozen) and producers is still small, largely family-run, and tight-knit. That’s part of the reason why it’s so exciting.  Other exciting producers include Caroline Hills, Coola Road, and Slow Lane Wines (aka Dom Smith who grew up in Mount Gambier and straddles the line between nouveau and classic wines).  In 2010, Mount Gambier was formally registered as a geographical indication (GI) area for growing exceptional grapes. Word is spreading and an exciting collection of growers and wine producers are choosing to call Mount Gambier home. Cue vigneron and farmer Andrew Burchell who grew up in the region and left to pursue winemaking dreams, gathering experience in France and Italy before returning home to start a family, build a winery and start Good Intentions Wine Co.

Andrew and his wife Louise planted chardonnay, high density pinot noir and more recently, cabernet franc, a cold climate shiraz clone, riesling and pinot gris on their farm located at Moorak, at the base of Mount Schank (a 100-metre-high, dormant volcano).  As soil goes the differences are extensive. There’s limestone at the base, and at places like Kongorong (20-kilometers away) you’ve got heavy fossilised limestone and flint rock which adds minerality and acid drive to the wines. As you come in closer towards the town itself, the soil is really sandy and ‘swaley’. To the east there’s clay-based soil, while the areas around the township, where Good Intentions is based on the cusp of the crater, is heavy volcanic. “It’s directly over lava,” Burchell says. “There’s some basalt and limestone below but none of my vine roots make any contact with anything because they can’t make their way through the lava and that can be as low as 1.2 metres below the surface. What makes that strangely exciting for our wines is that it’s really one-dimensional – our vines are literally in volcanic ash. It’s amazing.”  It makes for wine of precision and a sub-region that Coonawarra winemaker Sue Bell calls, ‘The Mount Etna of Australia.”  

Keep your eyes peeled for producers like Bellwether who champion Mount Gambier fruit. They are ahead of the game and also include Grey-Smith Wines (award-winning Blanc de Blancs and Chardonnay using Mount Gambier fruit), Coonawarra-based producers Ottelia run by Matilda and her father John Innes who make Mount Gambier riesling, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and chardonnay, and Limus made and grown by Kyatt Dixon.  

Find out more about Mount Gambier's wine producers here.