A Unique Site

This unique vineyard was planted in 1974 on the eastern edge of the West Naracoorte Ranges. At that time it was a lonely vineyard on the edge of the Naracoorte Caves National Park, 20 km north of Coonawarra.

The Whalebone Vineyard was purchased immediately after the formation of the partnership in 2002. Originally named Koppamurra Vineyard, it is 20 kilometres north of Coonawarra on the edge of the Kanawinka Fault in the southwestern corner of the Wrattonbully region. Since its purchase it has been completely retrellised and renovated. It has been renamed the Whalebone Vineyard because of the discovery of a 35 million year old whale skeleton in a limestone cave beneath the vineyard. The Whalebone Vineyard is a terroir particularly suited to the varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz.

Not even the pioneers who planted the vineyard could have realised how special the site is.

Situated at 37º 10’ S and 140° 87’ E at an altitude of 80 meters, the Whalebone Vineyard is on the dunal ridge of the oldest shoreline of the plain which gently leans away to the Great Southern Ocean 80 kilometres to the west. The West Naracoorte Range was formed along the north south Kanawinka Fault when the land began to rise about 0.8 million years ago, causing the Southern Ocean to recede away to its current shoreline. The ridge is seated on 35 million year old Oligocene limestone (very similar to St Emilion in Bordeaux) and it is in this limestone that the bones of a whale were trapped and are now exposed in a cave eroded into the limestone beneath the Whalebone Vineyard.