When it comes to Adelaide Hills red wines, the credits roll to the top with Pinot Noir the star attraction.
Sure, there’s Shiraz, in a cooler climate style often referred to as Syrah.
And plenty of new-comers are making a name for themselves, like Gamay, and several Italian immigrants such as Barbera, Nebbiolo and Sangiovese with the Iberian original Tempranillo also in the game.
But it is Pinot Noir that leads the billing, particularly suited to the region’s higher altitude and cooler growing season temperatures, and enjoying the opportunity to reveal in the glass the nuances of a vast range of Hills vineyard sites and aspects – those particular variations that the French call “terroir” driven characters.
A unique dried herb fragrance here, a more exotic spice note there.
This is what makes Pinot Noir so admired by wine lovers.
And what attracted Stephen George to plant the first Pinot in the Hills back in 1982 at the Ashton Hills Vineyard on the big dipper Tregarthen Road north of the village of Summertown.
There were other varieties as well at the beginning, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Merlot, Malbec, Gewurztraminer and Riesling among them, though over the years it was the Pinot Noir that excelled, with a few rows of Riesling still remaining to this day.
That vineyard and its creator were central to the birth of the modern identity of Adelaide Hills wine.
In its own way, the birth of cool.
Brian Croser with his Tiers Chardonnay Vineyard at the southern end of the Piccadilly Valley was the first of the pioneers in 1978.
Others soon followed, including Geoff Weaver in Lenswood, with Tim Knappstein and the Henschke family also in that district.
It was a lifetime of work to be able to produce fruit of such quality – and you’d have to say there’s some kind of magic about the place as well
But it has been Ashton Hills Vineyard that’s proved critical in generating the reputation for Pinot Noir in the region, itself regarded as one of the finest producers of the variety in the State and across the country as a whole.
Australia’s most highly regarded wine expert and commentator James Halliday was moved to write that it “is the most distinguished site in South Australia for Pinot Noir; Stephen’s unremitting attention to detail has made Ashton Hills the one Grand Cru of the State”.
After more than 30 years on the property, honing the vineyard into its best self to make a suite of admired wines, Stephen sold the enterprise to respected McLaren Vale-based producer Wirra Wirra in 2015, which has honoured his legacy, introduced young winemaker Liam Van Pelt to his mentor, and renewed the infrastructure with a modern winery.
The wines emanating from the next Ashton Hills generation remain faithful to their forbears, a current release 2025 Piccadilly Valley district Pinot Noir crafted from five separate vineyards in the area celebrating the 10th anniversary of the passing of the baton.
After Liam came on board in 2019, and with Stephen still living on the estate, the connection between the two grew, production shifted gradually from the old-house winery that Stephen had perfected, and the secrets of the vineyard began to unfold.
“I don’t think I’ve changed much in terms of the wine making, perhaps picking a touch earlier than what he was towards the end of his tenure here,” Liam says.
“And the vineyard site is amazing – he spent his life getting the fruit right, getting the clones right, getting all the planting options right.
“It was a lifetime of work to be able to produce fruit of such quality – and you’d have to say there’s some kind of magic about the place as well.”
Why the vineyard is considered so special comes down to a few key climatic elements, as well as the suitable soils, Stephen reveals.
It’s among the coldest, wettest and most humid areas in the Hills.
“And there’s a bit of luck as well, which is probably the aspect, being south facing, with its very cold nights,” he says.
“Maybe I did 75% of the work and the last 25% was luck!”
That work had a lot to do with figuring out which of the 20 or so different clones of the Pinot Noir variety he planted over the years worked best for that particular place, in the end coming down to five mains ones.
“They were the ones that were right for here, but not necessarily for somewhere else.”
It’s the intricate details within the vineyard, the soil variations, the clonal rows, the range of ripening moments … that mark the learning curve Liam has navigated
The legacy of all that work is fully appreciated by Liam, having been handed a portfolio of vines and wines that he says were “incredible” and haven’t needed much, if any, fine tuning.
The Estate and Reserve Pinots that come purely from the vineyard might be the special ones, but the Piccadilly Valley district wine is the one that sells the most and arguably is the most important of all in the marketplace.
Liam views it so:
“First and foremost, I want the Piccadilly Valley Pinot to be really vibrant, bright, juicy, drinkable, complex, yes, but it’s not the one to sit down and, you know, ponder life over.
“I think the Estate, that purely comes from this vineyard, has its own unique character.
“It has this very pronounced, like mushroom broth, sort of a forest floor thing, which is typical of the variety.
“There’s just that sort of character about it that this vineyard seems to throw every year.”
It’s the intricate details within the vineyard, the soil variations, the clonal rows, the range of ripening moments, the choice to harvest earlier than his predecessor that mark the learning curve Liam has navigated in the past eight vintages he’s worked at Ashton Hills.
But the belief placed in him to carry on Stephen’s legacy remains his most cherished responsibility.
“What I have learned is not necessarily how to make a better Pinot, but to have a sense of trust in myself that although I ended up here, it wasn’t planned, there was no job advertised, there was no job interview, this role never existed,” he says.
“But Stephen obviously saw something in me, that we have a similar belief of wines that we like and how to make Pinot and how not to make Pinot.
