We might not have a lot of vineyards….. but we own our Little Slice of Paradise.

Looking back to the day we purchased Nuraip Road, the vineyard was the second importance the first was a shed.
A place to start making our wine ourselves and our way.
The first initial thoughts were always, what are we going to do with the Cabernet Sauvignon out the front?
Decisions were made on the fly a lot with starting our own winery, the decision to just make wine from the vineyard and see how it goes kind of was the thought for the next few years as other things became the priority. But also, from day one the long-term goal was always to be able to replant and have a vineyard that truly represented Yelland & Papps.

As the vintages come and go, the Cabernet Sauvignon that we produced was pretty good, picked earlier than some and was vibrant fresh and had great varietal characters to it that clearly represent the King of varietals Cabernet Sauvignon.
As things in 2018 and 2019 started to become clearer and vision was unobstructed the long-term goal seemed to come into place.
As the 2020 vintage came upon us, we were in a different world and some of the costly decisions got put on ice for a while, we went ahead in 2020 and 2021 and made what we thought was some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon that we had produced from this vineyard. We decided to put this under the new Single Vineyard label not only for the reason of quality but also as a farewell to the vineyard. We had decided to bite the bullet and rip out the vineyard and let this rest and rejuvenate for a while before replanting. Unfortunately, the vineyard was declining with the reworking of Eutypa-infected vines this was not a viable use of our land anymore.

In 2021 and 2022 this vineyard laid bare and in December 2022 we replanted with Roussanne and Grenache Blanc, bringing our rows closer together, and starting from scratch with new posts, and irrigation the time was for a new beginning.

As history goes this front block used to be planted up to apricot trees and where we park now was littered with drying racks, a thought of progression is key no matter what era we are in.

We are blessed to be able to take this small piece of land into the future as modern traditionalists making classic but contemporary wines for the future.

Let’s see how the next ten years pan out.

Susan Papps – Yelland & Papps