Inspired by
the simple
life
Summertown Wine Co began as a dream back in 2004, while travelling through the beautiful vineyards of the Burgundy region in France.
Aaron fell in love with the seemingly simple life led by the people of this region. Weekdays were spent nurturing the vines and lovingly taking care of the resultant wines and weekends were spent visiting the local farmers markets to stock the cupboards with beautiful fresh produce.
But perhaps the thing he liked the most, was there always seemed to be enough time to sit down to a lovely lunch with a glass of wine!
Upon returning to Australia, the idea of doing something similar in the beautiful Adelaide Hills simmered away until meeting Fenella, his now wife. Fenella encouraged him to follow his dream and in 2008 Aaron went back to Uni to study a post graduate diploma in wine making.
His first foray into wine making was after completing just one subject, Introduction to winemaking… What could go wrong! With the help of his mentor Walter Clappis of Hedonist Wines, he set about making a small batch of Shiraz sourced from Walter’s McLaren Vale vineyard.
The 2009 season was a very hot with the fruit coming off the vines at 35 degs, now this was surely going to test him, and it did! After a stuck ferment and perhaps a touch too long on skins, the wine, while not his best, was good enough to encourage him to continue.
Aaron completed his studies in 2012 and it had become very clear that most of the winemaking process is completed in the vineyard. You can’t make good wine out of bad grapes! So, with Fenella’s blessing they began the search for the perfect little block of vines. You see at this stage the plan was to buy a small block of vines that they could look after themselves and produce a small volume of wine to share with family and friends and maybe even sell a bottle or two. Well, after many years of looking they were unable to find the perfect combination of nice house and lovely little block of vines. That brings us to the vineyard they are now proud owners of.
They have a beautiful piece of land that has vines planted in 1980, which makes it some of the oldest vines in the region. In this block they have Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. They have a second block which was planted a little later in the mid 90’s. This block consists of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. They have 18 Acres in all. A little bigger than they first dreamt of but, the fruit is so good and the property is only 15 minutes from the city. So the dream has grown a little but they couldn’t be happier and now they have lots of vine to share with you all!
And so the journey continues. In October 2019, Aaron and Fenella obtained their producers licence enabling them to present their wines to the world. They hope you enjoy drinking them as much as they have enjoyed making them for you. Beautiful wines, hand made with love.
