It is now almost 15 years since Shaw+Smith co-owners Martin Shaw and Michael Hill-Smith MW visited Tasmania and purchased a vineyard on a whim.
The Tolpuddle Vineyard in the Coal River Valley was planted with chardonnay and pinot noir clones best suited to making sparkling wines.
But Shaw and Hill-Smith had very different plans, Their vision was to create one of the best single vineyard sites in the country, producing world-class table wines.
After some re-planting, new clones and a decade and a half of work on the vines, Tolpuddle has established a global reputation for excellence. Mission accomplished.
"There was never any great plan to buy in Tasmania," the duo says. We were simply blown away by some of the wines from this vineyard that we had tasted from barrel, then fell in love with the site when we visited. Both serendipitous and spontaneous.
"We believed, and still do, that it is a special site with potential to produce wines of outstanding personality and quality."
The 2024 Tolpuddle Chardonnay and 2024 Tolpuddle Pinot Noir were launched this week at the award-winning tasting room surrounded by the vineyard. CD manager Pip Anderson did a great job of overseeing the tasting and lunch.
The wines hit the market this morning and are sure to be in high demand following international wine show successes for the 2023 releases.
"We think this already one of the great single sites," Shaw told guests who were lucky enough to taste five previous vintages of each variety: 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 - which illustrated just how gracefully both wines age. "A lot has changed over the last 15 years."
The new releases are super impressive - and very food friendly - and you can read full reviews at www.tasmanianwineonline.blogspot.com this weekend.
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