"After a 10-year search, we selected this very special terroir of our Hard Hill Road Vineyard site to call home and craft our Chockstone and Hard Hill Road labels. With its own special microclimate, the Hard Hill Road Vineyard’s cool ripening conditions and naturally low-yielding vines produce wines with layers of intense flavours and a velvety structure. Like many of the best wines in this historic region, our wines are approachable in their youth and possess the potential to age gracefully.
We purchased our property in 2005 while we were still living in America, and planted out first blocks of Shiraz, Riesling and Durif in 2006. The first vintage of ATR wines was 2007, and we made just 200 dozen from a neighbour’s vines. We spent the next 10 years improving our vineyards, planting more vines and new varieties (including Durif, Nebbiolo and Tannat), and in 2016 the time was right to pack up the family and make the big move down under full time.
Since we first planted our vines, our focus has been to create modern, cutting edge wines from the historic Grampians region, both from traditional varieties, as well as some lesser known varieties. Adam’s passion is to create wines that surprise the taster, but at the same time truly represent the vineyard in which they were grown. We are one of the few wine growers to plant Nebbiolo in the Grampians, and the only one to grow Tannat and Petite Sirah (also known as Durif). We use these varieties with a novel approach to create a series of unique and engaging red wine blends." - AT Richardson
