"One not only drinks wine,
one smells it, observes it,
tastes it, sips it and
one talks about it"

King Edward VII

"Wine is bottled poetry"
Robert Louis Stevenson

Ellender Estate is a boutique vineyard and winery located at Glenlyon, near Daylesford, is one of Victoria's most stunning rural environments. The initial planting of Pinot Noir was in 1996, followed by Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris.

Current plantings total nine acres with the core varietals being Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and small plantings of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. The vineyard is nestled in the hills of Glenlyon, near Daylesford at an altitude of 500m with a largely north-south orientation.

Our vision is:

• to produce quality wines from Estate grown grapes reflecting the typicity (the degree in which a wine reflects and expresses its varietal origins) of the climate and the terroir;
• to employ traditional winemaking techniques;
• to value add to Estate produce ;
• to produce wine with minimal environmental impact and to enhance the Estate ecology; and
• to provide visitors to our Estate and the region with a pleasurable and significant experience.

Grapes are hand-picked and all processing of grapes are handled on site employing traditional methods. Vintage begins with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes selected for base wine for traditional Méthode Champenoise, followed by Pinot Noir to produce the basket-pressed Pinot Rosé. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris for table wines are selected on taste, sugar content and acid levels. All wine analyses, barrel ageing (élevage), bottling and labelling are carried out onsite.

Vineyard Profile

Ellender Estate is a forty acre property nestled in the hills on the north-western boundary of the Macedon Ranges Wine Region straddling the Great Dividing Range. The vineyard lies between four extinct volcanoes - Holcombe Hill, Kidd Hill, Gooches Hill and Mount Franklin. The resulting quartz, basalt, clay soil - which favours the Ellender Estate style with limited cropping and vegetation growth control - combined with the long wet winters and short dry summers conspired to produce ideal growing conditions for cool climate wines.

The Macedon Ranges has the coolest grape-growing climate of any wine region in Australia. The Macedon Ranges Region is also one of the few wine regions in Australia where the wineries are almost all family owned and operated.

Viticultural Features

Site Selection and Clones:

Our vineyards, situated on the Estate, comprise two "clos" separated by a valley - the "Glen". The easterly facing slope on the eastern six acre vineyard received first plantings of Pinot Noir (clone MV6) in 1996, Chardonnay (Penfold clone 57) in 1997 and more recently Pinot Noir (Dijon Clone 114). The three acre vineyard planted in 1998 on the west of the Estate sports two clones of Pinot Noir - MV6 and D5V12, and our planting of Sauvignon Blanc (clone F4V6). Here, forty percent of the Pinot Noir in the lower reaches of this vineyard is earmarked for ripening and vintaging as Pinot Rosé.

Planting Density:

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are planted in rows eight feet apart and four feet between vines. Sauvignon planting distance was increased to six feet in anticipation of its reputation as "the vineyard triffid"(due to its tendency to ‘take over' -except when attacked by hares and wallabies!).

Vineyard husbandry:

The Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are cane pruned; whereas the Sauvignon is spur pruned. Drip irrigation is installed but used for irrigation only to supplement nature on extreme days. It is also used for feeding soluble vine nutrients. Our spray program is based on Integrated Management and we only use agrotherapeutics when nature strongly suggest they are needed for wholesome fruit - for instance, during bunch-set, we protect for botrytis if climatic conditions indicate and, in early and late season, we protect against powdery and downy mildews with organically accepted sulphur and copper respectively.