About

Patrick Sullivan is one of the country’s most thoughtful winemakers; beneath his mop of unruly hair ticks a brain obsessed with how volcanic-derived soils can shape a wine. 

Nick Ryan, Best Wines in Australia - The Weekend Australian

Patrick makes beautiful, compelling chardonnay. He has several tiers already, including Bull Swamp and Ada River, from fruit he farms at a property near Warragul. ‘If you are going to do one variety, and we do it as good as anyone on the planet, there’s more potential to scratch. What kept pushing me is how chardonnay sits on the world stage, apart from the fact I like white wine, I just don’t think anything comes as close to chardonnay. It probably reveals a personal bias because chardonnay is hedonistic, it’s all about drinking pleasure.'

Jane Faulkner - Halliday Wine Companion 

Australia’s isolation breeds a courageous, chameleonic capacity for reinvention. While reduction remains a balancing beam across which fruit and acidity are draped, it is handled more judiciously today. Oak handling is superior and lees work, more exacting. Moreover, organic and biodynamic bonafides are on the rise, complementing better site selection, more astute viticulture and less interventionist winery practices.

Ripeness and extract are plied to confer textural complexity, rather than supine fruit flavours, or the vapid mantra ‘varietal typicity’, an oxymoron when it comes to a grape as inherently neutral as Chardonnay! Indeed, well-hewn phenolics in Chardonnay are embraced in Australia, suggesting that the paint-by-numbers rubric of leaner styles has been superseded by more laissez-faire approaches to celebrating what a vineyard delivers.

A meld of fruit intensity and textural detail is the postcard that conveys regionality, according to winemaker Patrick Sullivan.

He posits: ‘Texture comes first and foremost from the vineyard and the concentration of fruit from long hang time, mineral rich soils and full malolactic.’ (Rather than stunting it with filtration and losing texture as a result.)

Sullivan also believes that an oxidative approach to firstly crushing and then pressing the grapes goes a long way to elevating texture, over gentler whole-bunch pressing, long the Australian norm.

Ned Goodwin MW, In Pursuit of Regional Identity in Australian Chardonnay - Decanter

Patrick Sullivan is a viticulturist-first winemaker, dedicated to expressing the vineyards he works in with precision and honesty. His approach prioritizes meticulous vineyard care - pruning, leaf thinning, and constant attention - to create wines that truly reflect their site. Since 2016 Patrick has farmed in Gippsland’s Baw Baw Shire, where dramatic landscapes and diverse soils shape his wines. Increasingly drawn to chardonnay for its transparency, he aims not for a label, but simply to make great wine.

If you are interested in having a discussion about distributing our wine or would like further information, we look forward to hearing from you.