OUR WINEMAKING

The Yarra Valley – Leads the Charge

The Yarra Valley produces outstanding fruit for premium wine production.  Its cool climate growing conditions is a platform for the production of wines with wonderful varietal characteristics and flavours at lower levels of ripeness when compared to other wine regions in Australia.

As a result, Yarra Valley wines have greater balance with elegant ripe tannin structures and noticeable levels of natural acidity. Comparisons are often made between the Yarra Valley wine-style and that of the old-world wine regions of the Cote d’Or, Bordeaux and the northern Rhone Valley in France. Although Yarra Valley wines are distinctively Australian, there is a sharing of characteristics in wines produced in these regions.

An example of this can be found in Oakridge Pinot Noir sharing the same fruit flavour spectrum as Corton on the Cote de Beaune.

Oakridge sources from its own vineyard and from selected regions in the Yarra Valley.


Yarra Valley on the World Stage

The significance of the Yarra Valley as a respected wine region on the international stage and the proven quality and typicity of Oakridge wines result in an uncompromising proposition for the wine lover.

Our Winemaking Techniques

Since 2002, David Bicknell has been pouring his heart and soul into producing award- winning wines for Oakridge.

With an approach to wine-making that incorporates everything from the soil type from which the vines grow to the type of music that is played during vinification, David’s ability to create remarkable wine stems from his intuition and innovative tactics, which allow him and the Oakridge winemaking team to deliver outstanding results each year, making the Oakridge Cellar Door, a favourite in the Yarra Valley.

David says that his style of winemaking embodies all that is philosophical about winemaking.

"For us, it is part of a movement away from the mechanised, wine-by-numbers industrial approach, back to its origins as a craft. Central to this, are the vineyards themselves, and as we grow the grapes ourselves, and have that physical connection, we are vignerons in the true sense of the term. To this, we apply traditional winemaking techniques that we feel are sympathetic to the style of grapes grown in the region. There is nothing fancy or hi-tech in the winery, and there need not be, as after all, there is nothing new in winemaking. We just get our hands dirty in the same old way."

When tasting the Oakridge range or any of our wines for the first time, the wines can be best described as being fresh, with a purity of flavour and balance. As young wines they are almost seamless - nothing appears out of place. You simply yearn, for another glass. With age, Oakridge wines still have this freshness and purity of a young wine, but with more complexity and palate length.