Crayères Vineyard is
20 years old

However, our vision when Lucy and I established this vineyard was nothing short of traditional, even if the traditions were purely Australian.  We were pursuing the long history of making great clarets in Coonawarra, designing the vineyard with fine red wine in mind.  We sourced Australian planting materials for the Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and partially the Cabernet Franc amongst Australian clones, rather than European clones. The eolian sandy soils on the eastern section of the vineyard were deemed better suited to Sauvignon Blanc which was, at the time, a variety with good currency. We planted our red varieties on the pure Terra Rossa soil which prevailed throughout the block elsewhere. 

We used American rootstocks for all plantings giving us an insurance against the possible spread of Phylloxera, but mainly to achieve uniform ripening and reduce vine vigour.

Our close spaced design was in the good old Australian tradition of perfecting viticulture for its own sake, not to emulate other regions in the world.  The design was deemed both practical (wide enough to use tractors in the rows) and performant from a quality viewpoint.  The higher row length per hectare would allow us to spread the fruit better in the canopy and allow better bunch exposure, which is critical in cool climate viticulture.

Then, the first few vintages tested our designs.  The first discovery was that Sauvignon Blanc had lost its currency as a grape variety by the time the vines started to bear fruit.  We decided to make the grapes into wine.  In this case, we looked at “Old World” traditions of making Sauvignon Blanc as a fine wine (late ripening, whole bunch pressing, use of oak, etc…), and we consider the Crayères Vineyard to excel in Sauvignon Blanc as much as in red claret.

The second discovery was the unique qualities of the Shiraz from our block, very fragrant and fruit driven, in an elegant way.  It took us a few years to understand that the Shiraz was perfect as a blending component.

Finally, we fulfilled the initial goal of making fine red clarets: both the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Cabernet Franc are indeed ideally suited to their Crayères vineyard home. With the exception of the 2011 vintage, we have been amazed by the consistency of the quality of the wines.  

It seems that our grape varieties are perfectly adapted to the soils, the geology and the climate of the Crayères Vineyard (some call this terroir).  We have tried our best to express the qualities of the vineyard through our minimal intervention winemaking over the year, and we are very proud of the wines we have made so far from this special vineyard.

Xavier & Lucy Bizot