Dan Falkenberg
Vineyard Manager at Eden Hall
“We’ve taken fruit from that section, and we’ve bought three 1500 litre French foudre barrels. We’ve got the 2021, 2022 and 2023 Shiraz from that site in those barrels and we’ll start releasing it in two years as our icon wine.”
Dan, who is a prolific reader and shares his knowledge by speaking about sustainable vineyard practices at regional events, said another key part of the Eden Hall management philosophy was a holistic grazing approach.
“We've divided the vineyard up into cells and we bring about 300 Merino ewes in after harvest when we get a flush of new grass growth. We bring the mob into a particular cell and we'll graze that for seven to 10 days, watching how much they take, to ensure they don’t overgraze,” he said.
“Then we open that gate, and we move the sheep to a new cell to graze. We then graze that cell before moving them on again. We've got five cells here that we work through during that winter-spring period which allows the area that we've just grazed to recover.
“The sheep control the grass growth and fertilise the soil as well. It's about planning, monitoring, and managing those sheep so that we don't bare the ground out in any way. We aim to maintain 100% cover which then gives us 100% functional biodiversity in the vineyard which is really important.”
Eden Hall is also revegetating creek lines and non-productive areas of the vineyard for biodiversity and has established native insect corridors to control vineyard pests.
“We have several projects going on here, which might be small, but are very important to reducing our reliance on chemicals. We’re also making our own bio-fertiliser out of our compost, which we’re trailing in the vineyard,” Dan said.
“We're always pushing the boundaries, looking at a more sustainable and regenerative way that we can grow grapes out here.”
Owned by David and Mardi Hall, Eden Hall Wines won a SAWIA Viticulture Environmental Excellence Award in 2023.
Eden Hall also won the Young Gun of Viticulture Vineyard of the Year Award in 2021 and is Sustainable Winegrowing Australia certified.
Find out more about Eden Hall Wines here.
Meet South Australia’s wine people
Behind every glass, there’s a grower. Or 3,182 of them
Our winemakers, viticulturists, cellar hands, marketers, wine slingers and grape pickers share a deep bond. A shared humility and a sense that no matter how fine a wine is, the people and authenticity behind it matter most.
They are custodians of place and culture. Some stem from families who have worked the same patch of dirt for more than a century, others who chose to leave their homeland and ‘chase the grape’ on South Australian turf.
