This Yarra Valley winemaker’s newest releases are informed by his iconoclastic approach to phylloxera, as well as his increasingly holistic understanding of the land.
Standing up to phylloxera
While phylloxera arrived in Australia’s state of Victoria in the 1870s – as it continued to ravage the vineyards of Europe – the Yarra Valley escaped infection until 2006, when, according to Yarra vintner Mac Forbes, it was brought in by Treasury Wine Estates. (See Max Allen’s summary of the situation in 2015 in Phylloxera creeps through Yarra.) Today nearly all the Yarra Valley growing area is under threat: only...