Tiers Vineyard

A Distinguished Site

Tiers Vineyard

In every way The Tiers Vineyard is a "distinguished site". It is the first vineyard planted in the Adelaide Hills thus pioneering the true cool climate wine industry of South Australia.

Beginnings of Tiers Vineyard

Tiers Vineyard

The Croser family planted the Tiers Vineyard in 1979, the first vineyard planted in the Adelaide Hills region in the 20th century.

Chardonnay had only emerged in Australia in the mid 1970’s and to underline the extent of the experiment and risk, The Tiers was one of the first Chardonnay vineyards in South Australia as well as being the first vineyard in the Adela

Viticultural Balance

Tiers Vineyard

The Tiers Vineyard was planted in 1979 with OF and Mendoza Chardonnay clones on own roots on the radical vine spacing of 2.1 metres between rows and 1.5 metres between vines (3175 vines/hectare), then the closest spaced vineyard on the Australian mainland. The vines are hand pruned to two canes of 12 buds each and two replacement spurs of 2 buds.

Harvesting the Tiers Vineyard

Tiers Vineyard

The Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay is hand harvested typically at the end of the first week of April in bright Autumn sunshine and cool air.

The typical analysis of Tiers Chardonnay at harvest is:

Fermentation and Maturation for the Tiers Vineyard

Tiers Vineyard

The racked and partially clarified juice is immediately seeded with our vineyard yeast strain and malo lactic bacteria strain and gravitated to a mixture of 70% new and 30% one use Vosges oak barriques.