Victorian wine

Today winemaking is spread out across the state and features premier wine regions such as Heathcote, Rutherglen, Pyrenees and the Yarra Valley.

[1] Some of the earliest commercial plantings in Victoria were near Yering and established by Hubert de Castella, a Swiss immigrant who came to the region in 1854.

In his 1886 treatise, John Bull's Vineyard, Castella ambitiously laid out his plans for Victoria to produce enough wine to supply all of England's needs.

Unfortunately, before his grand plan could be fully realized, phylloxera made its own way to Australia and the viticultural setback was compounded with the development of the domestic temperance movement, as well as economic uncertainty and labor shortages during the first World War.

The region began to establish a reputation for its sweet, fortified wines made from late harvest grapes that are shrivelled to near raisins and then spend several months (or years) aging in oak barrels stored inside a hot tin shed that acts like an oven.

In the late 1990s more definitive boundaries were established that divided Australia up into Geographic Indications (GI) known as zones, regions and subregions.

[4] The North West Victoria zone is the most similar Victorian wine region to South Australia's Riverland in that generous irrigation sources provides for high yielding production.