A. Retief

Owner and winemaker Alex Retief's wine career was prompted by his parents planting a vineyard near Ladysmith, in Gundagai, in 1997. He enrolled in the wine science course at CSU, and in 2001 was accepted as the trainee winemaker at the university's winery. In mid '02 he went to California's Sonoma Valley, working at Fetzer Vineyards, returning to the Hunter Valley for the '03 vintage with Andrew Margan. He was winemaker there for two and a half years, punctuated by a harvest in Languedoc in '04, before heading back to France in '05 for a two-year appointment as winemaker at Chateau de Lagarde in Bordeaux. The A. Retief wines are made from contract-grown grapes in the Tumbarumba/Canberra District/Hilltops/ Gundagai regions. He has his own boutique wine distribution company.