Living Our Dream
Lambrook began in 2008 with two small parcels of fruit (Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc) and a half-crazy idea of making it into our own label wine. It was something we’d always wanted to do—we dreamed of people ordering our wines in restaurants. So, when we were offered these parcels of spectacular quality fruit, we thought… let’s just go for it!
We were both working in the industry and knew our way around a bottle of wine. We were very excited and wanted to be involved in every part of the process—it had to be our wine. And we also wanted everything to be done in the Adelaide Hills—it was what we knew and felt passionate about.
Still, knowing and doing are two different things. Fortunately, we’d built fantastic relationships with a lot of knowledgeable Adelaide Hills’ experts who were very enthusiastic on our behalf.
So we set about turning the fruit into wine and we were hands on, from the winemaking to bottling to the labelling (which we did ourselves in our kitchen). It was fun and stressful and hilarious and annoying and brilliant, and in the end we had 700 bottles of beautiful Lambrook Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc (which lived on a pallet in our spare bedroom for a while).
We’d gone into the process wanting to make quality wines that over-delivered on price. So the next task was to see if people thought it was worth buying. We started with family and friends (of course) who pretty much loved it and began ordering it, which was exciting.
Word spread and we began taking more orders. We also approached a number of boutique retailers and saw heaps of restauranteurs. It was just us; meeting people, taking orders, answering emails, delivering—everything to do with Lambrook, we did (and still do).
So, over the course of the next few years, we sourced more grapes, added varieties (from personally chosen parcels across the Adelaide Hills) and made more quality wine. The half-crazy idea of Lambrook became full-time lifestyle/career for both of us in 2015.
While a lot has changed since we began, much has remained the same: We are uncompromising about what we make—if the fruit isn’t up to scratch, we won’t make the wine; passionate about creating wines that over-deliver on price; love being involved in this industry and maintaining relationships with everyone we work with and sell to, and we enjoy celebrating and promoting all things Adelaide Hills.
We are now living our dream… People are ordering Lambrook wines in restaurants.