Place of Changing Winds
Producer Website
Place of Changing Winds is the vineyard project of Bibendum’s founder and owner Robert Walters. It is a single site in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria that Walters and his team began planting in 2012. Walters had searched for almost five years to find the right location, which turned out to be in a little hamlet called Bullengarook, on the southern foothills of Mount Macedon, about one-hour north-west of Melbourne. This area was called Warekilla by the original inhabitants, the Wurundjeri people. This means ‘Place of Changing Winds’, a characteristic of the site that still holds true today.
‘No compromise, no regrets’ is the motto here. Rob has drawn on his years of experience observing many of the great growers of the world and translating what he considered to be best practices to his particular setting. The idea of the vineyard (and more long-term, the extended farm) is an organically run, self-contained environment. The practices applied are very labour-intensive and designed to maximise the chances for quality soil and vine health, a strong connection between the plant and its environment, and therefore, an expression of place in the resultant wines.
The elevation is high (500-plus metres), and the average rainfall is typically between 700 and 900mm. It’s a genuinely cool site with very cold nights and a massive diurnal range, which Pinot and Chardonnay love. In summer, the range can often exceed 20°C or more, which leads to heavy morning dews and strong frosts. The soil is eroded quartz, sandstone and quartzite over clay and sandstone bedrock. This geology is over 400 million years old and was mostly formed at the bottom of the ocean in the Ordovician Period. In simple terms, it is very rocky, gravelly soil, historically known as Bullengarook gravel.
“Nothing we do is original even if it has been adapted to our place. Much of it is drawn from historical practice that has long been associated with quality. This knowledge was initially gifted in one way or another.” Robert Walters
The vines have been planted to a very high density of between 12,000 and 33,000 vines per hectare (as compared to typical Australian levels of between 2,000 and 3,000). The logic behind this is complex, but in basic terms, it forces the vine roots down to seek water and nutrients in the sub-soil. Such densities also help the plants to work together in intricate ways, providing more balanced canopies, fewer and smaller bunches and less yield per plant (up to a sixth of the norm found in quality Australian vineyards). The vines are pruned according to Poussard and Dezeimeris-inspired principles—a type of pruning that respects the natural biology of the plant and creates more robustness and disease resistance. To have a broad variety of expression, the vineyard is planted with nine clones, on a combination of their own roots and a variety of rootstocks. It is certainly a very different approach—much more labour-intensive (over one full-time person is required to work each hectare of vines), complex and expensive.
Together with the Estate wines, Place of Changing Winds also produces some Syrah and Marsanne from the Heathcote region (about 130km north of the cellars) and, from the 2021 vintage, there will also be some Syrah and Marsanne from Harcourt (cooler, granitic and even closer to Bullengarook). The team works very closely with both growers. The plots are managed organically and to full POCW specifications. The approach has always been to try to produce reds of greater finesse and drinkability than the Heathcote stereotype. In short, the aim is not to make blockbuster wines, but rather to make a more digestible kind of Syrah—Syrah for Pinot lovers if you like.
Understanding how to establish and manage this kind of organic site took extensive research and is the result of some 25 years of engagement with some of the best growers in the world. The hard work and risk involved in planning, establishing and running the Place of Changing Winds Vineyard project has recently been recognised by the Young Gun of Wine Awards (2021 New Vineyard of the Year) and the Halliday Wine Companion Awards (2021 Best New Winery of the Year).