Tolpuddle
It's love at first sight with Tolpuddle's swoon-worthy wines. Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith would never have guessed that a spontaneous trip to Tasmania and a chance peek at a vineyard would see them purchasing it two days later. Now their Coal River Valley vineyard is one of the greatest single site vineyards in the country.
Bright, aromatic and fresh, while at the same time boasting incredible depth of flavour. Cool climate classics hitting the spot in all the right ways.
The vineyard takes its name from the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset farmhands shipped off to Tasmania in the 1830s for having the nerve to form a union. One of them is said to have worked this very land. Planted in 1988, the vineyard sits in a cool, dry pocket of the Coal River Valley, where long, slow ripening makes for some seriously good Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Adam Wadewitz is the man behind the wines these days, turning out Chardonnay with all that lovely citrus, flinty tension and texture, and Pinot Noir that's perfumed, finely structured and built to go the distance.