Top Note

Computer chip designer Nick and opera singer Cate Foskett were looking for a lifestyle property in the Adelaide Hills after full-on careers in their very different occupations. By chance they came across a 24ha property planted to 5 varieties, all mainstream except for 0.5ha of a rare mutation of semillon that turns the skin red. They say, ‘Despite the small hurdles of our not knowing much about anything and none of the grapes being under contract, we sold our city house, enrolled in postgraduate viticulture and winemaking at the Waite Campus, University of Adelaide, and became grapegrowers’. Two years on, Cate became possibly the only qualified operatic viticulturist in the world, managing the vineyard and sales, and still works as a singer between harvests. -JAMES HALLIDAY