Faisan Estate
About
Our cellar door is located at the heart of Faisan Estate, where you'll be able to trek through our family vineyard, sample our wines at the winery tasting table and if you're extra lucky, Michael might even show you some barrel samples.
Location Description
Our winery is located at the face of our vineyard on Lemmons Rd in Borenore.
Features
- Handcrafted, single vineyard wines from the Orange region, NSW, Australia.
Additional Information
- Meeting / Conference Facilities:
- Caves:
- Wedding Facilities:
- Picnic Facilities:
- Dog Friendly:
- Winery Tours:
- Wine Tasting:
- Art or Architecture:
- Organic / Biodynamic:
- Awards:
- Wine Club:
- Lodging / Bed & Breakfast:
History
They moved to the Orange region of NSW in 1991 and acquired a small property in Borenore, 20km west from Orange CBD. Being an enthusiastic game bird hunter, Col named the property Faisan Estate. Faisan, being French for pheasant.
This acquired property included a small one-acre block of Cabernet Sauvignon, which was planted in 1985.
Col commenced work on this small planting, re-trained the existing vines and with the assistance of Murray Smith of Canobolas-Smith Wines and from many others along the way, made his first wine in 1993; a Cabernet Sauvignon and still drinking beautifully to this day.
With his wife Trish and three sons, plantings continued and wines continued to be made. By 1997, another 15 acres were planted, which included Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Semillon. Col believes his job was made much easier as "Orange is a great place to grow grapes. The high altitude, cool-climate allows these varieties to express themselves and the natural acidity lends well to matching with food".
Being a labour of love, quantities were small, which made production manageable and allowed Col to keep a close eye on the quality of the wines being made. The standouts were the Cabernets and while the vines continued to mature, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir continued to excite.
Sadly, due to Col's growing demands for his job at the Department of Agriculture, production eventually ceased, with 2002 being his last vintage. From that point, the fruit grown was sold to other wine producers.
The Team
After visiting Bordeaux and tasting a rather expensive red blend, Michael felt that Faisan could make it as good if not better. So he packed his bags, returned to the Orange region to pick the Faisan brand up from where his father had left off.
After a seven year hiatus, Faisan began making wine again, with Michael's first vintage being in 2010. This included a Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah (Shiraz), Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay.
Michael also produced a barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc, which isn't grown at Faisan, but at the slightly cooler Gnoo Blas vineyard in Orange, sitting at an altitude of over 900m above sea level.
Michael, through a combination of study, learning from his father’s knowhow and interacting with winemakers from Australia and Europe, built his knowledge to enable the a smooth transition from business analyst to winemaker.
Michael's enthusiasm for the Orange region is in its depth. "With the regions variation of soil types and an elevation that ranges from a 600m minimum to over 1100m above sea level, the Orange region is very sight-specific and can grow almost any variety, depending on where the vineyard is located".
Michael regards the individual terrior (climate and soil) of Faisan to be ideal for Cabernet and Merlot and believes these are the wines that best exemplify the both the uniqueness of the Faisan's vineyard and the depth of the Orange region.
Other wines that also excite Michael are Chardonnay. "Across the board, Orange grows beautiful Chardonnay fruit. The balance, mouth-feel and fruit characteristics may change, depending on soil type and altitude, but the consistency of quality is unchallenged".
Another variety Michael also feels has enormous potential is Pinot Noir. "This is a variety that's very sight-specific. Not only is a cool ripening environment important, but so is soil. Our vineyard contains decomposed limestone, which is very good for Pinot Noir. It provides good drainage and doesn't overcrop, keeping our yields low and the fruit flavour intense".
In fact, Michael is so excited by Orange's potential for Pinot Noir and just how much the vineyard location can influence the balance and flavour, that he intends to release a dedicated varietal range. The aim is to source Pinot Noir from different vineyard locations across the region, treat each fruit selection with the exact same winemaking process and bottle them as single vineyard wines. This would create a range that expresses the individuality and uniqueness that various soils and climates can have on this wonderful variety.
Practices & Techniques
We adopt a combination of both old-world and minimal intervention winemaking techniques, which includes whole bunch fermenting for our Pinot Noir and Syrah, all reds go through an extended pre-fermentation maceration on skins which provided both texture and savoury characters. Also, our Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are fermented naturally using wild yeasts.
We've also recently fitted our own bottling facility, which will seal our Cabernets and future vintages of Syrah and Pinot Noir with a DIAM (taint-free cork) enclosure. All other wines will continue to be bottled under screw cap, which takes place at a third-party bottling plant. Prior to distribution, this is the only time any of our wines will leave the winery.
The winery also acts as our cellar door, which suits us fine, as we like the opportunity to take each taster right to the heart of where the action is.
Estate Vineyards / AVA
When Col Walker and his wife Trish acquired the property in 1991, plantings increased. What started as one acre steadily increased to 15 acres by 1997, with further plantings of plantings of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Semillon added.
Our vineyard is located in Borenore, which is 20km west of Orange CBD and sits on the northern foothills of Mount Canobolas at an altitude of 780 metres above sea level. The naturally cool climate of the Orange region provides us with a steady growing season, giving the fruit high natural acid allowing for gradual ripening. But our vineyards location also gives our vines adequate exposure to UV light, which aids the ripening process. The combination of these two factors gives our wines elegance and full-fruit flavour.
Our vineyard's altitude and aspect provides a varying mesoclimate, with the warmest part of the vineyard being the Cabernet block, which has a Mean January temperature (MJT) of 20.7°C, which is a similar to that of the central-western region of Bordeaux in France; one of the leading Cabernet regions in the world. The Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blocks are cooler, tending closer to 19°C.
The soil also plays a part. The combination of red basalt, decomposed limestone and gravel soils, adds minerality to the flavour of the fruit, while also providing good drainage and allows the fruit to naturally grow at small yields, further concentrating the flavour.
These combining factors give our wines the elegance, balance, texture and flavour that strongly hints to both our vineyard and spiritual home of these varieties. This is particularly apparent with our Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, which we feel our vineyard provides a near-perfect growing environment for these varieties.
There are also plans to extend the plantings of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the near-future.