De Beyers Vineyard

This vineyard is named after a famous old pioneering Pokolbin family who settled in the area in about the second half of the 1800s. This story goes that somehow the de Beyers family immigrated form Alsace (which was either Germany or France at various times) ended up in Roma in Queensland with the idea of growing grapes. This was not an ideal location for grape growing and wine making at that time and the whole family moved to an area that they had heard was ideal, Pokolbin, in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. They acquired a holding just below the Brokenback Range. He called his vineyard “Rockside”, no doubt because it was next to some of the rocky outcrops of the Brokenback Range. The locals however continued to refer to the vineyard as De Beyers Vineyard even after there was no family left and we have continued with this tradition.

John H. C. Colvin bought the vineyard in about 1991 from Douglas McGregor who previously owned it with a group of others including Frank Margan. This group replanted the vineyard in the late 60's early 70's with Semillon on the creek flats, shiraz on the red clay hills and about a half an acre of the 'new' commercial variety, Chardonay. John with his wife, Robyn, have continued to build on the early owners' work concentrating on bringing the vineyard of which they (and hopefully their predecessors and future generations) can be proud.

Colvin Wines

From 1991 to 1998 virtually all the grapes were grown and the sold to Tyrrell’s. The Semillon grapes have traditionally gone into Vat 1 and the Shiraz and Chardonnay to Vat 9 and Vat 47 respectively. There was about twenty cases of Semillon in 1993 made for interest and gifts for the family and friends of John Colvin. This early wine went under the label “Vin de Colvin” which is still a registered trademark. Unfortunately most of this wine was stolen from John’s garage from his then home in Sydney. There are however a few bottles still around.

In 1996 John planted Sangiovese after traveling to Tuscany and falling in love with this grape whic is a foundation for chianti and makes the 'super' Tusans.

In 1999 the first commercial bottling of wine to go under the Colvin Wines label was bottled. This was the first commercial vintage of the Sangiovese which was released to the public for purchase in 2002.

The first publicly available Semillon was the 2001 Semillon which, on its debut, won a bronze medal at the 2001 Hunter Valley Wine Show and a silver medal in the 2002 Australian Boutique Winemakers Show. Subsequent vintages of the Semillon have proved to be world class with James Halliday placing the 2002 and 2003 vintages in with the “Best of the Best” Semillon in Australia in his 2005 and 2006 Wine Companions. The first Shiraz under the Colvin label was produced in 2003 and the first Ragamuffin and Rose in 2005.

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