Acacia Park Vineyard (-36.695664, 146.395903)

Acacia Park Vineyard was established in 1980 by the Murtagh family in the Cool climate wine region of the King Valley. This unique site has a gently sloping easterly aspect, with red volcanic soils containing decaying basalt on the slope the vineyard rises to nearly 400 metres above sea level. The vineyard is hand-pruned and hand tendered to achieve the best results. It relies mainly on natural rainfall which the underlying basalt retains and assists the vines throughout periods of warm weather, almost drought-proofing in the summer months. The vines run north-east to south-west with viticultural practices including vertical shoot positioning encouraging even ripening and providing important shade to prevent the impact of sunburn.

Our Valley Selection range of small batch wines are created from parcels of fruit carefully selected by our winemakers from a single vineyard. The wines explore the individuality of each variety and our expression of wine styles, while reflecting the unique region in which they are grown. Each bottle captures the essence of the growing season and the vineyard, nurtured by our growers, and then passionately crafted by our winemakers into remarkable and age-worthy wines.

Harvested in the cool morning on the 31st of March at a temperature of 15°C, the low yielding grapes reached optimum flavour and tannin ripeness at a baumé of 14.5. The grapes were destemmed, crushed to a static red fermenter, and was inoculated with specially selected Iberian yeast strain and fermented for ten days reaching a peak of 26°C. The must was pumped over the skins daily, allowing a gentle extraction to achieve great colour, varietal flavours and excellent tannin structure. The wine was then pressed off skins into oak barrels, of which 40% are new American, with the remainder being two and three year old French. The wine completed MLF in barrel, allowing oak to be integrated into the wine. During 18 months of oak maturation, the wine was minimally handled to preserve the unique characters that the region and vineyard bestows on this individual wine.

A cold wet start to the growing season proved challenging in the vineyards with fruit set and ultimately yields lower than average. Summer began with high humidity, but during the ripening period became stable and dry. A balanced and even development of flavour and tannin ripeness occurred with fine natural acidity retained across all varieties. While the quantity of grapes was down in 2022, quality was fantastic.

Toni Pla Bou