Adaption is key, instead of looking for something to blame for our challenges, we must take responsibility for what we do, acknowledge where we have made mistakes and grow from that (quite literally). Carrying on with this approach leads to the biggest question of all that I think farmers need to be asking. Are we growing the right thing in the right place? I would argue that if we have only taken a great crop in 1 of the last 3 years and we depend on water to remain viable, then we need to reassess what, why and how we are growing our vines.

A number of years ago we planted Tempranillo and Grenache bush vines which will hopefully look something like this by the time I’ve hung up my boots.

Tempranillo and Grenache are both native to the hot, dry, continental climates of Northern Spain where they are producing some of the finest wines in all of Europe. On top of this, it is my hope that we can start growing more interesting Italian, Spanish and Southern French varietals such as Sangiovese, Fiano, Malvasia, Ribolla, Cinsault, Carignan, Lambrusco, Mammolo and others that are so well adapted to conditions similar to ours.

We have planted a range of native trees in our slowly regenerating forest corridor down by our dam and also planting native flowering shrubs at the end of our vine rows to provide habitat for insects, birds, reptiles and whatever else decides they want to share our home. We also collected seeds from the garden, surrounding areas and wherever we can find them and threw them throughout the vineyard to see what grows with the mindset that any ground cover is better than no ground cover. Through encouraging life on our property it is our hope that we develop an ecosystem that is resilient, diverse and beautiful.

Every day, we try our best to tread lightly, to do the least damage possible and to do our best to work with our land, not against it. I’m calling it, future proofing.

Our approach to farming is routed deeply in the idea of stewardship. It’s not simply the vineyards that we manage, it’s the surrounding ecosystem. Of course, a focus on growing good grapes is paramount to making good wines, but our privilege as land owners is an even greater responsibility that we don’t take for granted.

How do we do this? By encouraging a diverse range of plant and animal species to inhabit the area within and around our the vineyards, building soil health and soil water holding capacity and in turn create the conditions within which very high quality grapes can be grown. In the past 10 years alone, we have planted over 500 tress and shrubs at vine row ends, within insectary areas, in the remnant forest and sown a vast range of different species of ground covers between our vineyard rows.

This includes the native indigo we have planted at the vine row ends, kale we have sown throughout the vineyard, the spear grass that grows wild, cunningham skinks, the magpies who enchant us with their calls day in day out and know us well, the koalas who have only recently returned, and so much more. We are looking after these things as well as our vines.