Primo Estate

There are numerous special features like a 50 metre drying rack area, visible from the driveway entry and used for making the JOSEPH 'La Magia' botrytis wine.

At the core of the winery, suspended above head height, are five ten tonne open concrete red fermenters. These are more labour intensive but there is no doubt that the subtle aeration and warmer temperatures that they give during the fermentation phase results in wine with more soul.

Another rare sight are the three large oak casks which perpetually contain wine for the JOSEPH Sparkling Red. Shiraz going back to the mid 1980s is in this mother of all base wines.

These co-exist with the more usual temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and barrel storage.

The winery is operated by a dedicated cellar crew of four people (three of them fully trained winemakers). But if you were to ask them what is the single most important piece of equipment for producing quality wine, they would all say "the coffee espresso machine".