Fox Creek Wines

The Fox Creek story began when a small group of doctors and their wives decided to pursue a lifelong passion – creating wine from bare earth and sunshine. The earth was found at McLaren Vale, one of South Australia’s premier wine regions, globally renowned for its Shiraz. The sunshine was free.

Between them and their families Fox Creek Wines was born and what a success their venture has been! 

When Jim and Helen Watts bought the 32 hectare Fox Creek Vineyard property in 1984, they were advised against planting vines in the black clay soils that had previously been used for growing barley. Undeterred by the sceptics, they nurtured the young vines which bore fruit – exceptionally high quality fruit –  and lovingly converted it into supreme quality wine!

As we believe wine is principally created in the vineyard, great care is given to the vines. Many of the vineyards are trellised to expose the grapes to sunshine and free movement of air which reduces susceptibility to disease. Our premium wines are sourced entirely from grapes grown in the McLaren Vale region and most of them from our own vineyards. 

Fox Creek’s flagship wine was the 1994 Shiraz, which won the Trophy for the best wine at the McLaren Vale Wine Show in 1995. Fox Creek has subsequently won this award in 1998 and 2003 and successive vintages of this wine, now called the Reserve Shiraz, have achieved international acclaim. As Fox Creek’s success continues, many of the wines have been recognised with trophies and medals from national and international shows. The range of wines made by Fox Creek has gradually increased to seventeen.

In 1996, our Cellar Door was opened in a nineteenth century stone cottage built by the Malpas family in the 1880’s. It is located only 45 kilometers South of Adelaide, South Australia and is surrounded by beautiful grounds with a lake, water birds, ancient large eucalypt and olive trees adjacent to the bridge which crosses ‘Fox Creek’ on the way to the historic cottage.

In early 2000, construction of a 1,500 tonne capacity winery was completed. The decision to install stainless steel open fermenters rather than rotary fermenters was made due to the quality benefits this traditional method offers. The winery has a maximum storage capacity of 600,000 litres. This includes a range of small storage tanks to support the “boutique” winemaking approach the company has adopted.

In 2005, Scott Zrna joined the company as senior winemaker. Formerly senior winemaker for McWilliams, Scott brought with him a bounty of creativity and experience, which allowed Fox Creek’s wine to continue to develop and progress from strength to strength.

Fox Creek is an active supporter of the arts and has been the official wine sponsor of one of Adelaide’s major festivals, The Adelaide International Guitar Festival since 2007. In mid 2009, Fox Creek put key product information in braille and large print on the back labels of our wines to assist the visually impaired. Fox Creek also supports many other cultural events and since 2002, has supplied the wine for book launches by Wakefield Press, Adelaide’s longest standing independent publishing and distribution company.

Region And Climate

The McLaren Vale Region has a Mediterranean style climate with a strong maritime influence and is frost-free as we are 7km from the sea. Annual rainfall is 600-700mm falling mainly in winter. It is an ideal location for growing grapes, with little disease pressure.

Vineyards

Fox Creek has three company vineyards or approximately 60 hectares of vines. The vineyards are within a range of 5 kilometres, near the village of Willunga.

Varieties

On our vineyards we grow most common grape varieties. The red varieties are our specialty, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The white varieties grown are Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Verdelho and Semillon.

Environment

Fox Creek has always protected and enhanced the areas surrounding the vineyards with plantings of indigenous native trees. These provide habitat, food and shelter for native birds. Our focus is to be environmentally friendly and only use sustainable practices if possible. We strive to minimise the use of any chemical or other artificial agents.

Soils

There are many different soil types in our vineyards. About one half are black cracking clays full of organic matter which can develop deep cracks in summer. The rest are red sandy loams with rocks right through their profile. These soils are well drained and aerated. We manage the vineyard floor with a mix of cover cropping and permanent swards. Mulching the under-vine area is also carried out to improve the structure, fertility and microbiological diversity in soil. Cultivation is kept to a bare minimum to conserve soil structure.

Trellis

Our vineyard layout and trellis systems have been designed to best suit the specific needs of individual varieties. Most of our Shiraz is grown on a trellis system called Scott-Henry, and the vines are trained to two cordons. The shoots from the top cordon are lifted by a set of foliage wires while the bottom cordon shoots are down-turned. This system helps control the natural vigour of Shiraz while allowing maximum sunlight penetration and ventilation of the canopy. Most white varieties are grown on a Vertically Shoot Positioned trellis. This gives excellent fruit exposure and ventilation to reduce disease pressure, but enough shading to prevent sunburn damage to the bunches.

Our Winemaker

Scott was born and grew up in the modern, regional city of Mildura which stands on the Victorian side of the Murray River, 540km from Melbourne. His family has had a long association with viticulture and Scott spent many seasons reluctantly helping harvest the fruit.

When Scott finished high school , he pursued a Bachelor of Science at Flinders University in South Australia. Completing his degree in 1992, he was still unsure as to what he wanted to do with the next stage of his life. 
 

Scott returned to Mildura to contemplate his future and while doing so worked a vintage with Mildara Blass. It was during this time that his love for wine blossomed as he thoroughly enjoyed the work. At the end of vintage Scott enthusiastically took up the permanent position offered, enabling him to learn the ropes from an experienced crew. Over a short period of time, Scott rapidly expanded his wine knowledge and established a desire to learn more.

Senior Winemaker, Alan Harris, encouraged Scott to study winemaking, so he enrolled in the Charles Sturt University’s Wine Science course.  Studying by distance enabled Scott  to work in the industry whilst he comepleted the course, allowing him to combine theoretical knowledge with practical application and he completed the course in 2002.
 

Scott spent five vintages at Mildura Blass, departing in 1997 to work as assistant winemaker at McWilliams Wines in Yenda. Under the guidance of Winemaker, Russell Cody, Scott learnt the intricisies of red winemaking.  After three vintages with Russell, Scott changed his colours and became the White Winemaker under the watchful eye of Jim Brayne, before advancing to Senior White Winemaker, a position which he held for another three years.
 

Scott needed a sea change and spent the 2004 vintage in Padthaway before settling into his current role as Senior Winemaker at Fox Creek Wines. Since late 2004 Scott has been set the challenge of using both his red and white winemaking experience and creativity to produce top quality wines.