Single-vineyard estate
Corrigan Ridge is a small estate on a high saddle of the Adelaide Hills. Five blocks, five wines, a cellar door built into the hillside and a terrace that looks down the valley.
Dawn over the saddle block, looking east across the valley.
The estate
The ridge runs north to south, so the vines take the morning sun and lose it early. The nights are cold, the season is long, and the fruit ripens late and evenly.
Everything in the bottle is grown here. Nothing is bought in, blended across or brought up from the plains.
A spur of ironstone and grey loam above the valley, with a saddle at its centre and a steep north face. The soils are thin on top and deeper in the hollow, and the blocks follow them.
Each block is planted to the one variety that suits its aspect, and each is picked, fermented and bottled on its own. The wines are named for the ground they come from, not for a style we set out to make.
Dry-grown where the vines are old enough to manage it. Mid-row cover crops, sheep through the rows in winter, hand pruning and hand picking. Small, deliberate work, done every year by the same people.
The five blocks
The centre of the ridge, where the morning light lands first and the wind keeps the canopy open.
The coldest ground on the property. Short rows, low yields, fruit that holds its acid.
A single long row of old vines on the warmest, stoniest edge of the ridge.
A sheltered dip below the saddle where the frost sits and the soil holds water.
The highest and most exposed block, picked early for the estate's traditional-method wine.
The wines
Made in the shed below the cellar door, with as little intervention as the fruit allows. Wild ferments, old oak, nothing fined.
Chardonnay from the crest, picked early and aged on lees in the bottle. Fine bead, green apple, a chalky finish that runs long.
Traditional method · Estate grown
Whole-bunch pressed to old barrels and left alone. White peach and struck match, taut and mineral, with the weight of the east slope's morning sun.
Wild ferment · Old French oak
From the coldest rows on the ridge. Sour cherry, forest floor and dried rose, light in colour and firm in the middle. A wine that rewards patience and a cool glass.
Part whole bunch · Unfined, unfiltered
Grown in the deep loam below the saddle. White pepper, pear skin and a lick of salt, dry and quick on the palate. The wine we pour first at the bar.
Stainless steel · Bottled early
One row of old vines on ironstone. Blue fruit, black pepper and cold-climate spice, medium-bodied with fine, sandy tannin. Made in very small quantities and mostly kept for members.
Single row · Members first
The wines are released as they are ready, not to a calendar. Members hear first; the cellar door pours what is open that week.
Join the club
The cellar door
Tastings are seated and unhurried, at the bar or at a table by the windows, and always with someone who works the vineyard.
You will taste the five wines in order, from the crest down to the stone, with a little on each block and why it makes the wine it does. There is no counter to lean on and no rush to move you along. If a wine is open from an earlier release, you will taste that too.
The cellar door is small and we keep it that way, so tastings are by booking. Walk-ins are welcome for a glass on the terrace when there is room.
Book a tastingThrough the year
Vintage. The shed is open, the ferments are working, and tastings finish with a barrel sample straight from the tank.
The fire is lit in the cellar door and the sheep are in the rows. Long lunches on the terrace move indoors, under the windows.
Budburst, new releases and the kitchen garden coming back. The first warm weekends on the terrace.
Evening tastings as the heat drops, and dinners under the vines while the valley goes blue.
The terrace
A long table under the vines, a short menu written each week from what the kitchen garden and the neighbours' farms have to hand.
The kitchen cooks over wood and keeps things simple: a few courses, shared, built around the season and around the wines. Bread is baked in the morning; what cannot be grown on the ridge comes from as close to it as possible.
Terraced into the slope below the cellar door, the garden supplies most of what reaches the table. What is picked in the morning is on the menu at lunch, and the menu changes when the garden does.
The club
Most of what the ridge makes goes to members. Three tiers, each an allocation delivered as the wines are released, with the run of the estate when you visit.
There is no joining fee and no minimum term. Allocations can be paused for a release, and each tier is described by what it includes rather than by a number.
A way in. The estate wines as they are released, and a standing welcome at the bar.
For those who want the single-block wines in depth, and a seat at the long table.
A small circle, close to the estate. Cellar space, the back-vintage library and a hand in the year.
Membership is for people who will drink the wines. Deliveries are to addresses in Australia; each release is followed by a note from the vineyard on the season it came from.
Visit
South Australia. An easy drive from the city through the Hills, on a sealed road that climbs the last of the way along the ridge.
Follow the main road through the Hills towards the eastern valleys, then turn onto Corrigan Ridge Road at the stone gateposts. The road is narrow and unlit past the gate; take it slowly, especially in the fog. Parking is at the top by the old shed, and the cellar door is a short walk down the hill from there.
Open