(Liquor Licence no. 32808886)
About Us:
In 2009 we purchased our small established vineyard in the Cassilis Valley, which is located 50 kilometres from Mt Hotham, sitting about 500 metres above sea level. The climate gives us warm to hot Summers and frosty cold Winters and our property sits alongside State Forest. At the time of purchase the vineyard was part of the Mt Markey Winery and although the region had suffered 10 years of drought the vines were surviving but were very stressed.
The vineyard had about 1000 vines consisting of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Traminer and Pinot Meunier.
Since purchasing our property we have developed a large orchard with specific varieties of apples for cider making using varieties from England, France and the USA. Our plan is to make a range of ciders which reflect apple varieties and are of a style to suit the sweet or dry palette.
Although we are not certified organic, our philosophy is to use a minimum amount of sprays, preferably non-chemical, and fertilise using natural products.
Our vineyard and orchard is pruned and harvested by hand and when processing our fruit we use the traditional method of basket pressing both our grapes and apples.
Our Products:
Each vintage of wine or cider is reflective of the season and the styles and types of produce we can make is dependent on our cropping volume.
Our consistent wine styles are Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and we produce a Heritage Cider which is a blend of our apple varieties. In 2022 we expanded our range of ciders to produce a Giger Cider and Hopped Cider. When we have sufficient volume we have made Pinot Gris, Traminer and Sauvignon Blanc vintages as we have done in 2018.
We hope to expand our range of Cider & Perry styles as we have traditional cider apples and pears planted in our orchard. In 2023 we have made a Kingston Black and Brown Snout varietal Cyder and look forward to sharing it in 2024 to allow it to clear naturally rather than filter.
Apple Varieties:
Our main apple varieties are: Kingston Black, Somerset Red Streak, Reines de Hative, Brown Snout, Yarlington Mill, James Grieve, Johnagold, Early McIntosh, Pink Ladies, Gravenstein, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Improved Foxwhelp and Harbison Nonsuch.
We have also the following pear varieties for our Perry: Gin, Moorcroft, Green Horse, Red Longdon and Yellow Huffcap. We also use Nashi, Packham and Williams pears.
Future Plans:
We have now established what cider apple varieties grow well in our climate and have been adding additional volumes of cider apple trees to increase our production. This will allow us to make cider reflective of the specific apple variety. We have been grafting both apple and perry pears to create authentic flavours in our cider and perry and look forward to seeing these produce fruit for future harvests.
Cellar Door
We opened our Cellar Door in November, 2022 and have welcomed many visitors to taste our produce and enjoy our beautiful location. Our Cellar Door is also the space we use for processing our fruit and fermenting room so it can be very busy during harvest season. As we also attend Farmers’ Markets on most Saturdays we are open on Sundays, and mid week by appointment. We update our hours on Google if these times change.
Label Designs:
Our first wine and cider label features the gang gang cockatoo which nest in our nearby forest each year. They are beautiful birds and mate for life. The drawing was made by an artist friend, Sadie Starnes, from New York. Sadie Starnes is an artist and writer from North Carolina who is now based in Brooklyn. She has held a number of solo exhibitions between New York and her former home of Tokyo
A design for an additional label is from another artist friend, Lynn Werner. Lynn has drawn a beautiful perron tree frog, which we know lives in our area. Lynn has explored a number of art mediums but is mainly a graphite pencil artist and is mostly self taught taking up the art form later in life. She lives in Drouin, Victoria.
The beautiful artwork has been incorporated into a wine or cider label by our nephew, Nathan Herbertson, a Graphic Designer, from Melbourne. He has produced our lovely logo, signage and labels and continues to work with us on special release labels.
Member of Cider Australia
In 2019 we became a member of Cider Australia.
Cider Australia is the peak body for the cider and perry industries in Australia The trust mark can only be used on ciders made with 100% Australian fruit.
Contact Us:
Phone: 03 41020000 or Mobile: 0425850148
Email: info@cassilisestate.com
Facebook: Cassilis Estate Wine & Cider
Send a Message:
Visit Us:
We are now open for business.
We are located at 1314 Cassilis Road, Cassilis Victoria 3898, Australia