PICCADILLY VALLEY VINEYARDS
ADELAIDE HILLS
OUR VINEYARDS
Our historical vineyard in Piccadilly Valley is the Bizot Vineyard, located in Summertown on the eastern facing flank of the valley. The Bizot vineyard is one of the highest vineyards in the valley at 550m altitude. The soil is red clay and sandy loams over a 70 million-year-old shale rock formation (Woolshed Flat Shale) and is at the boundary between the Woolshed Flat Shale and the Basket Range Sandstone geological formation. It is planted mostly to Chardonnay, on a North-North East facing slope, and to a small block of Pinot Noir on an East facing slope and a South facing slope.
Since 2016, we have started to manage other blocks in the Piccadilly Valley, two of them in the Summertown township, one in the Uraidla township, and one in the Piccadilly township. All these blocks are planted mostly with Pinot Noir which we use for our Natural Réserve.
We also own some smaller blocks in Summertown which were planted with varieties that we do not use for sparkling wine including Trousseau Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Mondeuse which we had made as a red blend and now as Rosé under our Down To Earth range.
We manage all our vineyards in the Piccadilly Valley ourselves and do not buy fruit. All our vineyards in Piccadilly Valley are cane pruned (Guyot Double), and are pruned by hand. We limit the use of herbicides by controlling undervine growth mechanically. We limit the use of chemicals sprays to sulphur and copper and some preventive fungal sprays.
We manually manage trellis and shoot growth during the growing season to optimise sunshine in the canopy. All our fruit is handpicked and delivered to the Tapanappa winery in Piccadilly Valley for processing. Our viticultural expertise in Piccadilly Valley allows us to produce the finest fruit, and to achieve distinctive balance in our sparkling wines.
THE PICCADILLY VALLEY GI
The Piccadilly Valley wine region was established in 2000 as a sub-region of the Adelaide Hills Wine Region. The Valley runs from Stirling in the South to Ashton in the North.
The Valley bed sits at just over 400m altitude and the highest hill is Mount Lofty at 727m. The vineyards are situated at altitudes of 450m – 600m, and are on small internal undulations, with slopes from 10°C to 20°C that give aspects to many points of the compass. The amount of heat received by a site is very orientation dependent.
The geology of the Piccadilly Valley consists of Precambrian sediments ranging from 1,600 million years-old calcsilicates to 700 million years- old phyllites, shales, sandstones and quartz-rich strata. The soils are podsolised duplex, sandy to clay loams and the geology is from either Woolshed Flat Shale, Basket Range Sandstone or Barossa Complex. The climate in the Piccadilly Valley has a long term average of approximately 1,200 degree days during the growing season and the yearly rainfall is approximately 1,100mm.
CLIMATE
The terroir in the higher, cooler slopes of the Piccadilly Valley makes it ideal for Sparkling wine produced using Méthode Traditionnelle.
Piccadilly Vineyards Growing season (October to April) heat summation – base 10°C days.
| (all in °C) | Avg | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stirling Post Office, CliMate data | 1260 | 1675 (+32.9%) | 1318 (+4.6%) | 1691 (+34.2%) | 1709 (+35.6%) | 1452 (+15.2%) |
OUR VINEYARDS
Our historical vineyard in Piccadilly Valley is the Bizot Vineyard, located in Summertown on the eastern facing flank of the valley. The Bizot vineyard is one of the highest vineyards in the valley at 550m altitude. The soil is red clay and sandy loams over a 70 million-year-old shale rock formation (Woolshed Flat Shale) and is at the boundary between the Woolshed Flat Shale and the Basket Range Sandstone geological formation. It is planted mostly to Chardonnay, on a North-North East facing slope, and to a small block of Pinot Noir on an East facing slope and a South facing slope.
Since 2016, we have started to manage other blocks in the Piccadilly Valley, two of them in the Summertown township, one in the Uraidla township, and one in the Piccadilly township. All these blocks are planted mostly with Pinot Noir which we use for our Natural Réserve.
Some smaller blocks in our Summertown vineyards were planted with different varieties (Trousseau Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Mondeuse) which we make as a red blend every year.
