About this winery
Established in Tasmania in 1990, Stefano Lubiana Wines is a family-owned company focused solely upon producing small quantities of handcrafted wines from grape to glass in the island state’s cool maritime climate.
Fifth-generation winemaker Steve Lubiana and his wife Monique chose Granton, 20 km north of Hobart, as the location for their family’s vineyard after years of searching mainland Australia for a suitable site.
Overlooking a broad expanse of river estuary in the beautiful Derwent Valley, our property provides a home to a modern, 300-tonne winery and 25ha of vines. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were first planted here in 1991. Various expansions over the years have added Pinot Grigio, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Nebbiolo. Our most recent additions comprise 7ha of Pinot Noir, established in 2010.
Granton’s latitude of 43 degrees South enables our vineyard to enjoy full sun exposure in daylight hours. Vines are laid out in north-facing rows on gently undulating hillside slopes that lie within close proximity of the river. These slopes rise gradually to a point approximately 100 metres above sea level, offering excellent cold air drainage and frost protection during the critical growing and ripening seasons of spring and autumn.
The river itself provides a wonderful moderating influence on our vineyard's mesoclimate. Having a large body of water adjacent to our vines helps moderate large changes in air temperature, keeping things cool during the heat of summer and warm during spring's first flush of new growth.
Hobart is Australia's second driest capital city. At our Granton Vineyard - barely 20 minutes' drive from the CBD - our annual rainfall is similarly low, and averages out to be close to 600mm per year. During the growing season, our vines receive little more than 320mm of natural rainfall per year.
Interestingly, our property has a wide variety of soil types. All are low in basic nutrients and water-retentive qualities. On our vineyard’s upper slopes, a thin layer of fine silty / gravelly loam dominates, offering a micro-environment that is readily suited to red grape varieties. On the lower slopes, a layer of well-drained coarse gravel features prominently. Its capacity for heat accumulation encourages early vine activity and the onset of budburst during the first weeks of spring. We believe these lower slopes are ideally suited to growing white wine varieties.
The Derwent Valley’s mild, largely maritime climate - characterised by many clear summer and autumn days - helps to optimise sugar accumulation and flavour development in our vineyard, and results in reliable yields of high quality wine grapes.
Typically, our berries and bunches at harvest are small but rich in varietal aromas and flavours. The sequence of warm days and mild nights throughout late summer and early autumn builds natural grape sugars while preserving life-giving acidity in our fruit. A diversity of clonal material planted across the vineyard encourages complexity in aroma and flavour profiles.
All viticultural methods used on our site are labour intensive. Pruning, vertical shoot positioning, leaf-plucking, bird netting, and fruit picking are all carried out by human hands.
Roseworthy College graduate Steve Lubiana and his vineyard team - led by Mark Hoey - manage our vineyard according to the biodynamic principles first outlined by Rudolf Steiner in 1924.
These allow us to maintain and enhance the unique features of our vineyard environment, by combining traditional farming practices – such as recycling, composting, and cover cropping – with a carefully scheduled use of natural homeopathic preparations that enhance each vine’s capacity to maintain good health and combat disease. Animals play a key role in biodynamics. We keep dogs, chickens and miniature sheep on our vineyard to assist us with pest and weed management.
Harvesting takes place only when our fruit has achieved the optimum flavour spectrum needed for winemaking. This can occur anytime between early March and mid May, according to grape variety, wine style, and seasonal factors.
Before winemaking commences, all fruit picked in the vineyard undergoes rigorous inspection via the use of a mechanical sorting table located at the winery. Fruit that is rejected contributes to a large, on-site biodynamic composting program. Winery waste – including packaging and grape skins – also contributes to the composting program.
Our property boasts a modern, well-equipped, state-of-the-art winery. This is conveniently located where it is needed most – right by the vineyard – and only makes products for the company’s Stefano Lubiana Wines brand. We have not functioned as a contract winemaking operation since the early 2000s.
Steve Lubiana is well known for pushing the boundaries of winemaking in Tasmania. We are always keen to explore new and innovative methods of extracting maximum aroma, flavour and texture in our wines. We regularly experiment with yeasts (wild and/or inoculated) and use whole bunch and/or barrel fermentation methods where appropriate.
Our bottle-fermented sparkling wines - made according to traditional French methods - are all produced on site, with our Vintage Brut releases undergoing a minimum six years' ageing on lees. Wines in our Prestige sparkling wine program spend up to 15 years on their yeast lees.
All white wines produced on the property undergo some degree of oak fermentation and maturation. For Pinot Grigio, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc products, this is done in older French oak puncheons, each holding 500-litres of wine. Chardonnays are typically barrel-fermented and lees-stirred in 225-litre French oak barriques, with wine sometimes being accommodated as well in slightly larger 300-litre French oak hogsheads.
Fruit for our Pinot Noir table wines is subjected to de-stemming and crushing before being gravity-fed to a mix of large open-top stainless steel and oak fermentation vats. Following several days of soaking at ambient temperature, these Pinot Noir batches begin to ferment spontaneously in the presence of indigenous yeast. Our vats are hand-plunged several times per day during primary fermentation. Extended skins maceration (post-ferment) builds colour and structure into our new wines. Oak maturation is a necessary component of all our Pinot Noir table wine production. Our Estate-labelled products are typically aged in a mix of new and used French oak barriques for up to 15 months before being fined with egg whites and packaged in premium Burgundy bottles.
All our table wines are screw-capped for quality.
It is important to note that we operate a winery not a refinery. We do not use reverse osmosis, electrodialysis or any other form of interventionist winemaking that has the potential to compromise a wine's capacity to convey its true expression of our vineyard terroir.
In May 2010, former International Wine Writer of the Year and renowned UK wine critic Andrew Jefford included Stefano Lubiana Wines in a list of Australia’s 10 bravest winemakers... ‘willing to challenge the status quo when it comes to their country's wine and its future… Their wines accurately, uncompromisingly and sometimes beautifully reflect their origins. They are like nothing else on earth.’ Decanter, May 2010.
Steve Lubiana is seen as a talented and well-respected industry professional by his peers. He is a founding member and former board member and director of the State's peak wine industry body, Wine Tasmania.
High resolution jpegs, suitable for publication, can be downloaded from http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefano_lubiana_wines/.
Specialties
All wines in the Stefano Lubiana Wines portfolio are grown and made with the utmost attention to detail, and are widely regarded as benchmark, cool climate Tasmanian wines.
Our bottle-fermented sparkling wines and estate-grown Pinot Noirs invariably figure in the Wine Companion's Best by Style categories.
In September 2010, the wines of Stefano Lubiana were showcased in the sparkling and Pinot Noir masterclasses held during Wine Australia's celebrated 2010 Landmark Australia Tutorial. The five-day tutorial brought together Australia's leading wine professionals and 14 national and international guests, including Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW (eRobertParker.com).
Please note: we have not made wines for other companies since the early 2000s.
Cellar Door
Sun: 11:00am till 3:00pm
Mon: 11:00am till 3:00pm
Tue: 11:00am till 3:00pm
Wed: 11:00am till 3:00pm
Thu: 11:00am till 3:00pm
As part of our winery, a cellar door tasting and sales facility operates five days a week. It is open from Sunday to Thursday inclusive, 11am-3pm. There is no charge for tastings.
Wines sold to destinations within Tasmania are sent freight free. For destinations within mainland Australia, a freight charge of $14 per case is applied.
Site works are currently underway to construct a new purpose-built tasting and dining facility that will enable visitors to see, touch and taste food and wine grown on site using sustainable, biodynamic farming practices. The developments are likely to be open to receive their first customers in March 2013.
In July 2011, Stefano Lubiana Wines received a $110,000 Federally-funded TQUAL tourism grant to develop interpretative displays and activities that will highlight biodynamic agriculture and viticulture as part of this development.
Our sustainably managed vegetable gardens and orchards have been developed by former agronomist and restaurateur, Patrick Johnston. Patrick established Tasmania's first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden.
It is anticipated that our new tasting room, 40-seat vineyard restaurant and interpretation centre will become fully operation during autumn 2013.
Geographically, Stefano Lubiana Wines is the first visitor attraction that can be accessed from the southern end of the Derwent Valley's Lyell Highway (A10).