Lowe Wines
Understanding organic winemaking
About
Recently named MUDGEE STAR CELLAR DOOR in the Gourmet Traveller WINE Magazine top cellar door awards. We are open for tastings of our Lowe range of wines. It's idyllic settings, with views over the vineyards, out across the Mudgee valley.
Location Description
Our cellar door and winery is located a short drive from the Mudgee CBD along Tinja Lane.
Additional Information
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History
At that time there was the other winery in Pokolbin, Hunter Valley where 70 tonnes of Hunter Valley wine was processed. We also made 20 tonnes for our first vintage in Mudgee.
Previous to this after coming back from my flying winemaker stint in France I started making wine for a few clients; Neil Perry the chef and some vineyard owners in the Hunter. I give credit to Neil for giving me confidence to start the regional focus.
The Lowe brand commenced when I stumbled on a couple of great vineyards. Brokenback, formerly a Rothbury Semillon and Chardonnay icon vineyard, and Peacock Hill a tiny but exquisite red vineyard property in Palmers Lane Hunter Valley which I owned for a brief time.
Practices & Techniques
In winemaking the same thing goes; cleaning agents like chlorinated compounds are out, no organic wine can be mixed with non organic wine.
You can only make organic wine from organic grapes.
Organic food must be produced from land farmed in an identical fashion and animals must be born onto a certified organic farm to be called organic. Particular attention is paid to husbandry that is sensitive to the animals natural requirements – natural breeding, extensive grazing, no synthetic chemicals such as worm drenches and of course, ethical handling.
Organic under conversion means that to achieve organic certification the vineyard must go through a conversion period minimum of three years, where you must practice pure organic growing, and must pass audits by an independent inspector contracted to Australian Certified Organic.
The Organic Standard:
The most frequent question we are asked is does organic mean preservative free. No it doesn't, but it does mean less preservative. The standard winemaking preservative is 220; sulphur dioxide. For organics the maximum allowed is 125 ppm and all our organic wines and under conversion wines fall well below this. Consistently organic wines contain half the allowable preservative of standard winemaking practice.
How do we interpret the organic standard.
In the vineyard we use competitive biology – aiming to be completely chemical free in dry years and to be using half the organic standard of copper and sulphur in wet years. Aiming always to lift the vine health through soil health and complexity and fight disease by leaving a vine with an active and competitive leaf surface biology that crowds out disease causing organisms.
In the winery we didn't change anything about our winemaking to pass the organic standard. If you are focused on fruit flavour and quality you don't tend to use a high level of inputs. Our wines prior to 2004 are made in the same way as certified wines made since 2007.
Estate Vineyards / AVA
The original vineyard was planted in 1973 with Keith (my father) and me from cuttings stolen, I think, from a neighbour. We planted a whole lot more in 1974 and this was, according to my father, because the vines that I planted were upside down.
Lowe Winer, MudgeeThe Chardonnay vineyard was at the time one of the largest in Australia. The cuttings were identified as Busby clone, the original vines from the James Busby collection in the 1820s and by now in various paddocks around Mudgee. The fruit was all that was exceptional about 70’s and 80’s Chardonnay, yellow, alcoholic, 150% Chardonnay and as new a style as Marlborough Sav Blanc is now.
The red vineyards which are the backbone of the winery site, were planted in 1995, on the basis of many soil pits, lots of soil tests and survey pegs. I matched the soil differences to the varieties but the Sangiovese and Barbera failed to make the quality grade and were grafted to Primitivo in the last few years.
Nearly all the Chardonnay was removed in 2007. We saved two rows for posterity.
The winery made a lot of wine for other vineyards over the last ten years with some outstanding wines made from the Louee Nullo Mountain vineyard.
In 2010 the two vineyards merged to become Lowe Wines so expect to see an added dimension when you next visit.
The three sites; Nullo Mountain (1100m), Rylstone (650m) and the Winery vineyard at Tinja (500m), make anything possible.