The Grampians Estate cellar door will be familiar to many a wine drinker. The modest building set close to the highway as you enter the town of Great Western was originally the cellar door for Garden Gully Wines, a project started in the 1980s by Seppelt winemakers, Warren Randall and Brian Fletcher.
It hasn’t changed all that much, except the coffee is better, locally-sourced food platters are on the menu and there’s a greater range of wines available now that Tom and Sarah Guthrie of Grampians Estate are the owners.
Their wine inspiration came from Seppelt, with Tom electing to produce a spice-charged shiraz and a sparkling shiraz which turned out to be as much the wine show favourite as Seppelt’s wines. Most of the estate’s production is sourced from the home property near Mafeking but one of the producer’s biggest strengths, riesling, comes from original Garden Gully vines ranging in age from around 80-100 years old.
That the Guthries are still in the wine game is a bonus for wine lovers. 10 years ago fire ravaged their property taking out nearly 90 per cent of its vines, leaving Tom to consider bulldozing the lot. Friends came to his rescue and Grampians Estate lives and flourishes. Jeni Port