Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
At Brown Brothers, located in northeast Victoria, mainland Australia's most southern wine region, the focus has always been on the winery's roots and the quality in the bottle. This philosophy is embodied in the company's motto "Nothing but the wine."
Brown Brothers owns 1,450 acres of vineyards and sources its grapes from five sites situated across a variety of climate, terrain and soil. These vineyards range from cool, high altitude areas to warm, dry valleys, allowing the winery to identify the perfect microclimate in which to nurture each varietal.
In 1989, Brown Brothers launched its pioneering Kindergarten Winery to mark the 100th anniversary of the family's first vintage. An enologist's dream, this state-of-the-art mini-winery is devoted to developing new viticultural techniques, enabling the winemaking team to experiment with several small batches of different grape varieties from various vineyard sites.
Nestled into the tip of its southeastern coastline, Victoria is Australia’s smallest mainland state, second most populous and third largest wine producer. Victoria includes the cool regions of Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Geelong, made famous mainly by impressive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
The more inland Heathcote and Bendigo lead the way for complex and textured, full-bodied reds. Rutherglen’s fortified wines compete among the best on the planet.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.