Hollick Estates

Coonawarra is defined by a strip of soil so distinctive that it’s attained near-mythical status: terra rossa, a band of red earth over limestone, renowned for producing some of the most age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon in the southern hemisphere. It’s one of the most tightly drawn terroirs in Australia, where the difference between being on the red soil and off it can be a matter of metres. Hollick Estates has been working that ground since the 1970s (on the red soil side, obviously).

Ian Hollick was the son of a fruit grower in Mildura, studied agricultural science, and worked as a vineyard manager in Coonawarra before striking out on his own. In 1974 he bought a chunk of grazing land at the southern end of the district, one of the original allocations from the fruit colony founded by John Riddoch in 1890. The following year he and his wife Wendy began developing it, planting Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Chardonnay, Merlot and Pinot Noir. The Hollick label launched in 1983.

The estate has grown across three vineyards since, two in Coonawarra and one in neighbouring Wrattonbully, where the soils echo Coonawarra’s terra rossa over limestone. The range has broadened too, beyond the classic Coonawarra reds into varieties like Tempranillo, Barbera and Sangiovese.

The original slab cottage on the founding block, restored and opened as the first cellar door, is a heritage-listed building dating to the 1860s, and is held to be the birthplace of John Shaw Neilson, one of Australia’s finest lyric poets. It’s an appropriate thing for a Coonawarra estate to have at its centre.