Adelaide Hills Winemakers CRFT Specialise In Organic, Single-Vineyard Wines

High up in the pristine Piccadilly Valley, the couple behind CRFT Wines are living their long-held dream of creating wines that are a true reflection of their place. Viva’s Johanna Thornton takes a tour of the Adelaide Hills winery with CRFT’s New Zealand winemaker, Frewin Ries.

On the day I visit CRFT Wines in Adelaide Hills’ spectacular Piccadilly Valley, the team is busy building a new gravitational winery. The foundation has just been poured on the hillside next to their original winery, a converted 1900s shearing shed and stables, surrounded by mature trees and lush orderly vines. Winemaker Frewin Ries explains this will provide better access to the wine tanks, allowing a rotator forklift to work from above and for the wine to drain downhill without using pumps.

“It’s going to be a great set-up,” he says, as he guides me through the original corrugated iron shed, which isn’t without its own charm with its wine tanks named after bands like King Tubby and Fat Freddy’s Drop, a nod to Frewin’s New Zealand roots — he hails from Taranaki.

It’s one of several wineries in the Piccadilly Valley, which is Australia’s highest-altitude wine-making region on the slopes of Adelaide Hill’s Mt Lofty.

It’s here CRFT winemakers (and married couple) Candice Helbig and Frewin specialise in low-intervention, single-vineyard wines using grapes from a select number of vineyards in Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley, both world-renowned wine-making regions.

“Single vineyard” means wines made with grapes from one vineyard site. These wines are a true reflection of the place they’re grown, says Frewin, and an expression of not just the site, but the soil and the seasons. It puts the focus on the grower and their location, allowing the vineyard to shine.

“But it means you’ve got to be good, because there’s nowhere to hide. Everything has to be precise all the way through or the wine is no good.”

Inside the ex-shearing shed, there’s the distinct artificial scent of Candy Bananas in the air, which Frewin says is caused by the yeast esters used during the fermentation process. There’s a red ferment underway, and he leads the way up some steps to peer into a pinot noir tank, where skin and whole bunches have floated to the top from CO2 production in a swirl of deep purple.

“I’ve pumped the juice from the bottom over the top today,” says Frewin as he fishes out some grapes to taste — they’re sweet and delicious; still attached to the stem. “Open tops like this give us the extra ability to see what’s physically going on as well as giving it a certain aeration.”

Back in the tasting room, which has been designed to feel like an extension of the winemakers’ home — which is on the same property as the winery — with a record player spinning tunes, the fireplace lit and a scattering of mid-century furniture, a flight of five CRFT wines has been assembled to try.

Included in the line-up is a 2022 Gruner Veltliner from The K1 Vineyard in Kuitpo, Adelaide Hills; a 2022 Chardonnay from The Lansdowne Vineyard in Adelaide Hill’s Forreston area; and a 2017 “museum release” Pinot Noir from CRFT’s own Arranmore Vineyard in Picadilly Valley.

“This is our vibe,” says Frewin, gesturing to a menu detailing where and how each wine is made, “having our wines lined up. It’s nice to have a tasting experience for us. What I like about what we’re trying to offer is that people who know a lot about wine, we can just pour them a glass and leave them alone, because all the information is there. Or if people want to ask questions, they can have a chat.”

As a visitor who falls into the latter category, I want to know what makes this area such a special part of Adelaide for wine, with its concentration of vineyards, market gardens and orchards, just a 20-minute drive from the central city.

“Piccadilly Valley is a sub-region of the Adelaide Hills,” says Frewin. “The climate up here in Piccadilly is more similar to central Otago than other parts of Australia. At night-time it’s a good 10-15 degrees colder”, which makes it ideal for cool climate wines. “It’s one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet and used to be as high as the Himalayas. It’s really geologically stable and estimated to have been created 1200 million years ago. You can go short distances and see huge differences in the soil.”

The altitude and variety in the soil make it fertile ground for grape-growing and the expression of wine’s flavour. It’s why CRFT is dedicated to single vineyard wines. Even their wine labels highlight the soil where the individual grapes are from, alongside info about the wine’s traceability.

“What we’re trying to do is break the mould and show where wine comes from. We’ve made 140 wines since we started winemaking and none of them is a blend.”

Does that mean a blanket rule on no blends?

“When the cellar doors close, I might mix a bit of this and a bit of that and drink it,” he laughs.

What else makes this region special, apart from the all-important earth?

Adelaide is a bit of a hidden gem, says Frewin. “The area has really come into its own in the past five or six years.” It’s where you can pop down the road for a bottle of rare Burgundy at a drive-through wine store, or find a “unicorn of wine” at the local pub. Many of the surrounding wineries have great restaurants cooking the best local produce. It’s a secret Frewin is happy to share with visitors to the winery, who are welcome to drop in and see first-hand what makes single vineyard wines so special.

Frewin and Candice’s winemaking philosophy was honed from their experience working in a range of wineries, with 46 harvests under their belts between them.

Candice, who hails from Barossa, has worked for Hardy Wine Company and Mollydooker, among others, while Frewin began his winemaking journey with Cloudy Bay in Marlborough.

“I was a lucky person who got into it,” he says. “I got to do some cool things when I was quite young,” like being inducted into a winemaking course a year early. “I was the only one in the class not able to legally taste the wine.”

Graduating with a wine diploma, he went on to work at over 15 wineries in New Zealand and Australia, as well as the United States and France, developing a love for single vineyard wines along the way. It’s a passion he shares with Candice, who he met in 2005 and went on to found CRFT with in 2012, opening the winery in 2017.

Their minimal intervention winemaking style goes hand-in-hand with organic practices, with CRFT gaining official organic certification in 2019, something Frewin says is a no-brainer for them. “There are 200 additions that can be added to wine and we don’t add any.

“Most yeast comes from Switzerland or Denmark but, if we’re making a single vineyard wine from Australia, there is yeast that exists on the skin of grapes and we’ll use that — and that’s the character from that place. There’s never been a commercial yeast in here.”

Outside in the vineyard, where the vines have turned a beautiful russet colour, the chickens are roaming free (the couple have 13 on the property) and the grass is left long. “We don’t till under the vines, we let it grow, and have a machine that whipper-snips it, or put the horses into the vineyard and they eat the grass.” This layer of protection encourages the roots to grow deeper, meaning more flavour from the soil, as well as more water retention.

They’ve also dedicated 1.2ha of their 5ha property to permanent native bush, which is alive with banksia, eucalyptus and native orchids, and home to the odd koala and black cockatoo.

Back in the tasting room, we sample the 2022 Gruner Veltliner, which is wild fermented in 50 per cent French oak and offers citrusy, floral notes with “honeydew melon and peach … white pepper, lime and pear”. A popular plant variety in Austria, it’s gaining traction in Australia and New Zealand, with the biggest planting outside of Europe in Adelaide Hills. “Gruners are a really good vessel for vineyard character, so we do four different vineyards made the same way, and there’s not one favourite, because they each do their thing.”

I can’t help but leave with a bottle of the 2022 Mencia, a dark, juicy and plush wine with notes of berry, cinnamon and liquorice. CRFT is one of the first wineries to offer this older variety in Australia, which hails from northern Portugal. It’s grown organically in The Rohrlach Vineyard, Barossa Valley’s southernmost vineyard. “It’s right at the boundary between Adelaide Hills and Barossa, where they have this beautiful ridgeline. It offers a cool climate for the Barossa but it’s still warm.”

As we head outside, a mist has begun to descend on the valley, and the temperature has dropped, but the vines look as bright as ever.

“This is the dream, being here,” says Frewin. “Making the type of wines we’re making is what I’ve been wanting to do since I was 17.”

Frewin’s top 5 places to eat and drink in Adelaide

The Uraidla Hotel, a rambling old pub with an eclectic décor. Visit the wine tank and select a bottle of wine.

Fugazzi Bar and Dining Room is a slick Italo-American eatery with a New York vibe.

Shobosho is a wood-fire Japanese and yakitori bar in an inner-city laneway.

The Aristologist cooks with produce fresh from the vege patch with a natural wine list to match.

Hellbound Wine Bar, a late-night basement bar with an on-point by-the-glass list.