Valhalla Wines

About

Valhalla Wines handcrafts its wines using natural vineyard practices, traditional winemaking techniques and careful cellaring in its straw bale winery. Valhalla has been established with environmental sustainability as a core value of its business. Varieties such as Viognier, Marsanne, Grenache, Shiraz and Durif are the heroes here, with the winemaker’s attention to detail creating wines of character.....wines with soul.

Location Description

Valhalla Wines is located in Rutherglen, North East Victoria, Australia.

Additional Information

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Winemaker

Anton Therkildsen – Winemaker / Owner

Anton’s career in wine can be traced back to many things - a family of avid wine lovers, some early experience in hospitality, a liking for practical science and a great desire to flee Sydney.

He headed straight to Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga after high school to study Wine Science, which on graduation saw him take on his first vintage in the Hunter Valley. This was followed by what was supposed to be a short term job at Campbell’s Wines in Rutherglen, which has turned into a long term love of all things Rutherglen.

As a winemaker Anton has a very hands-on approach and aims to create wines of character, wines with soul. He considers his job to be the custodian of the vines and vineyard and he works with the fruit to allow it to express its flavour, structure and individuality. His belief is that good wine starts in the vineyard with good fruit, moves into the winery with good oak (and TLC) and finishes in the bottle with good luck!

History

Anton Therkildsen and Antoinette Del Popolo both came to the Rutherglen area in 1997 for short term jobs, Antoinette as a General Practitioner in Corowa on the NSW side of the Murray River, and Anton at Campbell’s winery in Rutherglen. After meeting in early 1998, it didn’t take them long to discover a shared interest in good music, food, wine and a rural lifestyle. By Christmas 1999 they were married and had bought 60 acres in Wahgunyah, deciding that this area was for them.

Development of the property started in earnest in 2001 with the purchase of the first Shiraz vines, which coincided with the birth of their first child Caleb. 2003 saw the introduction of Durif to the Valhalla vineyard and daughter Ella to the world. The vineyard has continued to expand since 2001 to the current position of 4 acres of Shiraz and 2.2 acres of Durif.

The culmination of all the hard work paid off in 2005, which saw Valhalla’s first milestone vintage. This and the 2006 vintage were made by Anton using the facilities at Cofield's Wines in Rutherglen, with the fruit being sourced from Valhalla’s own vineyard and from select vineyards around the Rutherglen region. 2007 was another milestone in the short history of Valhalla that saw all fruit being processed on site in the new straw bale winery, and the opening of the Cellar Door in September.

Since then, the Valhalla range has expanded to a total of 9 wines with Cellar Door now open Friday, Saturday & Sunday from 10.00am to 4.00pm. We offer a wide range of wines focusing on varieties originating in the Rhone valley in France including Viognier, Marsanne, Grenache, Shiraz and Durif. These grape varieties are a perfect match for Rutherglen’s climate and soils and have become the heroes at Valhalla Wines, making savoury wines that truly depict the local ‘terroir’.

The Team

Antoinette Del Popolo:

Antoinette is a General Practitioner in Corowa. She came to the area in 1997 and enjoyed the job and area so much she stayed. Her love of wine started as a consumer and has developed further since meeting Anton. Antoinette looks after the books at Valhalla Wines,writes the newsletters and helps develop the marketing and sales strategies. She plays the balancing game between this, her job as a GP, work at Wodonga maternity unit and of course her important job as a mum to her 2 beautiful children.

Phillip Brain:

Phil looks after our vineyard, farm and all the other things needed to keep a working winery operating. He grew up around Wagga Wagga and was apparently a gun tennis player in his former years. He studied viticulture at CSU where he first met Anton, whilst he was completing his winemaking degree.

Phil has been a 'local' since 1996, when he started work at Cambells Wines in Rutherglen as a vineyard hand. His talent for tending 150 acres of vines saw him progress to the role of vineyard manager at Campbells in 2007, which he undertook for 7 years. Phil has been with us since mid 2013 and we're very fortunate to have someone with his experience and skills tend our vines. As they say, the best wines are made in the vineyard.

Practices & Techniques

Valhalla Wines is a passionate boutique wine producer in Rutherglen, North East Victoria who creates handcrafted, premium wines. We are a family business committed to producing small quantities of wines in an environmentally sustainable way, which are full of character. We use old-world traditional winemaking techniques, supported by some newer technology to ensure the best transfer of flavours from the vine to the bottle. Our sustainable vineyard practices encourage and promote biological activity without the use of chemicals, which delivers the depth of flavours we require in our fruit.

Our philosophy of environmental sustainability is driven by our personal beliefs as well as our observations of our vineyard and whole property. We have developed an understanding that soil is not merely a substrate but a living microcosm incorporating the plant structures, nutrients, living microbes and organic humus that occur in all of nature. We recognise that our children will be accepting the decisions we make today.

These philosophies are leading us toward organic principles in our vineyard using sustainable agricultural practices. These include use of cover crops in the inter-row area to reduce erosion and compaction of the soil. The cover crops also provide a haven for predatory insects that help reduce the attacking vine predators, and finally when slashed they provide organic carbon and humus as they break down. Our beautiful geese free range through the vineyard assisting with weed and pest management. We reuse all organic material from our property - skins and stalks from the winery & prunings from the vineyard into compost.

Water is a precious resource and we use as little as possible in the winery. The wastewater from the cellar door and toilets goes through a worm farm prior to irrigating our small orchard and the winery wastewater is settled and then re-used over a native tree corridor that we have planted on the property.

We also apply these sustainable philosophies to the manufacturing and marketing areas of our business. We use wine boxes and bags made from recycled cardboard. Newsletters, stationary and our wine labels use recycled paper where possible. Our aim is to achieve minimal waste from our business at all stages of production.

Estate Vineyards / AVA

Our vineyard is planted on rich clay loam soil at Wahgunyah, in North East Victoria. We believe the Rutherglen region is well suited to grape varieties from the Rhone Valley in France, with both regions having very similar climates. Hence, we have focused on Shiraz and Durif in our vineyard with total plantings of 6.2 acres and work very closely with local growers to source our Marsanne, Grenache, Mourvedre and Viognier.

The vineyard development has been a slow process. Our first plantings into our vine nursery were in 2001 from local cuttings. These were then transplanted out to the vineyard in 2002. We then slowly expanded our plantings over the last 4 years so we now have 6.2 acres under vine.

The first harvest from the Shiraz block was in 2005 producing a small quantity of high quality grapes, with the first Durif harvest taking place in 2007. We have been very fortunate to be able to source quality parcels of grapes from some excellent vineyards throughout the Rutherglen region. We work with specialist growers who have a similar philosophy to us in regards to care of the land and the fruit their vineyards produce. Our growers use a variety of methods including integrated pest management systems, minimal chemical use, right through to biodynamic preparations.

In the vineyard, we use natural farming methods including cover crops of oats and lupins between the rows, under-vine straw mulching to reduce weeds and retain moisture, fish & kelp emulsions, compost and free ranging geese to promote biodiversity and increase overall vineyard health. We are in the process of using less and less inputs in the winery with only one herbicide spray per year under the vines and sulphur and copper only on the foliage. All skins, stalks and residual grape pulp are composted on site and returned to the vineyard the following spring. To reduce energy usage we keep the tractor and ute in the shed as much as possible with most vineyard work done with a four wheel bike or on foot.

Drip irrigation from a bore is used as a supplemental water source as we encourage our vines to search deep to find their nutrients and water. Decisions regarding watering are done using MEA moisture monitoring at 600mm and 900mm as well as by shovel and by physically watching of vine condition.

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Hours

Fri - Sun: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Address

163 All Saints Road
Wahgunyah, Victoria 3687
Australia

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