For Dudley Brown and Dr Irina Santiago-Brown of Inkwell Wines, embracing regenerative agriculture is foundational. “Re-gen is the new state-of-the-art approach to viticulture,” Dudley says.
“It grows better wine at lower cost with more resilience to extreme weather. There’s a huge opportunity for McLaren Vale to maintain its environmental leadership and, within five to seven years, become the first carbon-neutral or carbon-negative wine region in the world.”
Irina, who has a PhD in sustainable viticulture, sees regenerative farming as an essential next step, going well beyond organics.
“We’ve seen tangible results – reduced fungicide use, problem weeds basically disappearing, grape sugar levels that don’t ‘race’ from stress at the end of the season, and sequestering water-holding soil carbon at a rate that far outpaces our carbon emissions. It’s exceeded even our most optimistic expectations.”
The pair regard it as the biggest opportunity for the region to benefit the people and the environment, while also providing a more profitable bottom line. “It’s the biggest win-win-win we’ve witnessed in our time in the wine industry,” says Dudley. “The best part is that it’s all about leveraging nature’s existing energy to multiply diverse life rather than extinguish it.”
Malcolm Leask of Hither & Yon, working alongside his brother, respected viticulturist and winemaker Richard Leask, echoes that vision. “For us, it’s about regenerative agriculture, embracing diversity and great value wine made for the table,” he says, noting they have a far-sighted, holistic focus on the region and community.
“We have a dynamic tourism scene here, and the local passion is strong, particularly in our little village of Willunga. Sustainable is a solid trust mark but consumers are also interested in non-certified story lines – biodiversity, community and purpose.”
For the brothers Leask, commodity wines are off the table. “Reds are tending towards smaller batch ferments and then looking to blend more for interesting, limited wines,” says Malcolm. “Italian and Iberian varieties are leading the way – bigger berries with higher acidity and rustic tannins that go with seasonal produce from our farmers' markets.”
For the region to broadly embrace that connection to food and lifestyle, the varietal mix needs rewiring. That’s true for reds, but whites make up less than 10 per cent of plantings, which is a number Malcolm says needs to rise. “Whites are vital – not just for their saline expression of our coastal splendour and soils, but for water limits, early harvesting and the trend towards lighter and fresher wines to match Mediterranean fare.”
Grafting white varieties yields a quick turnaround both in the vineyard and winery. “Being a 90 per cent red wine region isn’t an optimal business plan for wineries or attracting new tourists,” says Dudley.
“White wines can often be sold in the same year, while reds often take a few years. Grafting climate-appropriate white varieties from Italy, Greece, Portugal and the Rhône should be an important part of improving the shiraz-dominant mix, which can improve cash flow, sales and tourism relatively quickly.”
Shiraz, Australia’s long-term leading light, has been in the spotlight of late for the wrong reasons, with a significant glut dropping both fruit and wine prices – and with much unsold. In McLaren Vale, shiraz has an outsized representation, accounting for about 57 per cent of the region’s crush, compared to just under 30 per cent nationally. That imbalance is looking like a liability.
“Even before vintage ’25 kicked off, I heard of growers accepting $600 per tonne just to have somewhere to send the fruit,” says Thistledown’s Giles Cooke. “At the same time, some buyers are snapping up shiraz and cabernet vineyards and new vineyard plantings are planned by some of the big players. That said, the overriding shiraz sentiment was that of gloom, an acceptance of fate.”
Giles, perhaps best known for championing grenache, still sees a critical role for shiraz. “With such a large percentage of the region’s vineyards planted to shiraz, it’s clear that for McLaren Vale to thrive, shiraz must shine in the same way that grenache now does. Remember, only a decade ago, grenache was the turd that people couldn’t be bothered to polish, yet alone roll in glitter.”
In general, wines have shifted toward favouring medium-bodied expressions, and shiraz now spans a spectrum – from nouveau styles to more traditional, full-bodied bottlings – but there is still much work to be done in both swelling the ranks of these more elegant wines and also in selling them to consumers who associate shiraz with heft.
“More and more with the country’s cuisine, we need wines of less power and weight and more wines with style and finesse,” says Charlie Seppelt of Paralian. “They can have tannin, they can have drive, all of that, but just less of what was championed a few decades ago.”
For shiraz, Giles points to areas that have been so successful for grenache on elevated, sandy soils with mature vines. “This all helps to give a little more transparency and gloss to the wines without sacrificing generosity or weight,” he says. “McLaren Vale can offer something different to the bolder, more tannic examples from GIs further inland. There is plushness, florality to great Vale shiraz… there is a focus, energy and brightness to the fruit – if picked at the right time – that’s illuminating.”
McLaren Vale grenache certainly deserves its accolades, with world-class examples of singular character legion. But there are challenges. For those at the top of the game, grenache can be sold at a premium, but with old vine fruit selling for over $4000 per tonne, the shelf price others can achieve is often economically unviable. There is younger vine grenache coming online, but it will be some time before it will make wines of substance. As it stands, grenache accounts for only about 6 per cent of plantings, while another regional stalwart is somewhat more plentiful.
McLaren Vale's future is one of evolution.
Cabernet sauvignon is the region’s second-most-planted grape, covering about 20 per cent of vineyards, though not often getting the plaudits. “It’s easy to forget that wines like Wirra Wirra Church Block and Penfolds rely heavily on McLaren Vale cabernet,” says Toby Bekkers. “Cabernet is the base for some of the world’s great wines and has long been an important variety in McLaren Vale. E.J. Peake was growing cabernet on our Clarendon vineyard very early on.”
That site, which Emmanuelle and Toby Bekkers purchased in 2020, was first planted on a cool, steep slope in 1842. However, the oldest extant vines date to the 1990s, with the original success crippled by economic decline through the early 20th century, resulting in vines being replaced by an orchard. Cabernet was a key component on the original vineyard, and the Bekkers believe it will excel again.
“We love cabernet from the valley floor,” says Emmanuelle. “They’re plush and intense, darker fruited… but our ambition is to make wines with high-toned aromatics. A little more medium bodied with bright clarity of fruit. In Clarendon, we think we’ve found a nice balance between traditional McLaren Vale generosity and some slightly cooler varietal tones.”
The site is well served by 720mm annual rainfall, with a dam at the base collecting runoff. Cool elevation and diurnal shifts yield ripe yet refined wines, as the 2023 wines attest. Interestingly, that was also seen as desirable in the vineyard’s first incarnation, as reported by the Adelaide Advertiser in 1907: “The altitude of this vineyard, and natural absence of any excess of sugar from the grapes assist greatly in establishing quality to both white and red wines.”
“It seems to me that people are always grasping for the silver bullet, the next new variety, winemaking recipe, clone, farming system,” adds Toby. “We should lean more heavily into our history, and particularly the production of fine wine from special sites. The concept of the great wine estate is well established elsewhere and has much more potential for exploitation in McLaren Vale.”
That specialisation is key for Paralian’s Skye Salter, leaning into singular expressions, rather than the branding and commoditisation of variety and/or region. “We gravitate towards wines that taste like where they’re from,” she says. “When making any wine, it must pay homage to the vineyard, variety and season. One day, we’ll open 10 years of shiraz from our Springs Hill vineyard and hope that a line can be drawn over the site’s aromas and flavours, with differences in concentration and tannin due to the season. That’s a high-ceiling goal for us.”
“Living and working in the Vale is pretty breathtaking,” adds Charlie. “We’re spoilt with exceptional restaurants, some of the country’s finest beaches and climate to suit. Being coastal offers more moderation in summer from the usual South Australian heat, meaning more medium-framed styles of reds and the ability, with the right white variety, to make crisp and agile wines or those with a little more texture and weight.”
McLaren Vale’s future is one of evolution. It’s about refining what’s already great, investing in sustainability, embracing site-driven expressions and broadening the varietal palette with smart, climate- and lifestyle-appropriate decisions, from vine material to winery elaboration. From the soil to the cellar, the Vale is building a future that’s grounded in the now, but with an eye to a distant horizon.
This article first appeared in issue #79 of Halliday magazine. Become a member to receive all four issues per year, digital access to over 185,000 tasting notes from more than 4000 producers, and much more.
