Majella Wines

Welcome to Majella Wines, one of the most awarded small Australian wineries.

We are a family owned winery based in the famous Coonawarra wine region in South Australia, home to some of Australia’s greatest wines.The Lynn family have been residents of the Penola – Coonawarra district for five generations, starting off as blacksmiths, wheelwrights, storekeepers and final graziers.

In 1968 Brian and Anthony Lynn started planting a vineyard on the Coonawarra property that their parents had purchased back in 1960. At that stage the property was used for prime land production, but a decision was made to convert a lovely “terra rossa” bank on the front of the farm into vineyards. Eventually the size of the vineyards grew to 60 hectares. The remainder of the land is still used for sheep grazing, mostly for prime lamb production with the rest purely for wool.

The first vintage was in 1972, and from then until 1991 the Lynn’s were purely grape growers, selling their production to larger wineries, predominately to Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate.

In 1991 a decision was made to make 10 tonne of Shiraz into wine. This was done at the Brand Family’s “Laira” winery by Bruce Gregory, who along with the late Jim Brand was winemaker there. Gradually more and more grapes were converted into wine until we decided to build a winery here on the Majella property.

That winery was completed in late 1998, and at the start of 1999 Bruce joined the Majella Team and production commenced at the new Majella Winery. From 2002 onwards all the grapes grown on the Majella vineyards have been processed on-site and packaged under the Majella label.

At present we produce in excess of 25,000 dozen of Majella wines per year, and still grow over 2000 prime lambs for national and international consumption.

Over the past few years four of the next generation have joined the company in various different management roles – Peter (Marketing), Nerys (Administration), Steven (Vineyards) and Gerard (Farm).

The grapes that make Majella wines famous are all grown on the Majella property surrounding the winery.

Majella is situated on the eastern edge of the famous Coonawarra “red strip” and comprise some 60 hectares. About 55% is planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% to Shiraz and the remainder to Merlot and Riesling.

1968 saw the planting of the original vineyard – Block 1 and all up about 40 hectares were planted between 1968 and 1974. The remainder were planted between 1989 and 1996. All our grapes are processed into wine at our winery on the property and we only ever use our own grapes in the Majella wines. We like to think that our vineyards are managed in a very sustainable manner.

We've made a commitment to keep producing wines of an extremely high standard.Our crush is slowly increasing and we should start to see more premium Majella wine out there in the marketplace.

We are fortunate to have 60 hectares of mature grapevines planted in one of the very best wine regions of the world. With some fantastic grapes to use, one of Australia's best winemakers and a wonderful processing facility we have the ability to produce some of the best wines in the country!

The Lynn family have been residents of the Penola - Coonawarra district for over four generations, starting out as store-Keepers and then graduating into grazing. The property on which Majella now stands was originally owned by Frank Lynn, and bought by his nephew, George, in 1960. George and Pat Lynn kept Merino’s for wool production on their farm about ten miles away, and had always wanted some good Coonawarra country for their up-and-coming prime lamb enterprise. Viticulture, however, was not on their agenda until 1968.

George had always been great friends with Eric Brand. Eric has just started producing his wines under the "Laira" label and was selling some wine to the old Hardy Wine Company. Brian was interested in planting a vineyard on the Majella property and in 1968 we went ahead and planted 6 acres of Shiraz. Eric offered to buy the grapes to produce wine for Hardy’s and the future looked rosy. There wasn’t a lot of money in it, but it complemented the sheep enterprise, so eventually some 70 acres were planted - about 60% Shiraz and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon.

However, all good things come to an end, and the Hardy deal fell through just as the vines were maturing. Things were tight in the 70’s; demand for grapes, particularly Shiraz was very low, and although we could get rid of most of the grapes there were a couple of years when 30 or more tonnes of premium Shiraz grapes were left to rot. In 1980 we sold our first grapes to Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate (now part of the Foster's Wine Group). This was the start of a long relationship between Wynn’s and Majella, a relationship that continued for over 20 years. Since 1989 we have continued planting new vineyards and a present we have about 150 acres (60 hectares) under vine. Most of the new plantings have been Cabernet Sauvignon, but there are some small areas of Merlot and Riesling planted as well.

By late 1995 we realised that Majella needed a Cellar Door Sales and office facility, so Mount Gambier architect Stephen Herbert was charged with the responsibility of coming up with a concept that looked good, was functional and didn't cost an arm and a leg. A barrel shed together with the aforementioned facilities was designed and construction was finished in late 1996.

Our production level soon reached the stage where our own winemaking facilities were warranted, and enough high tech winemaking equipment was installed to keep us poor for years to come! Bruce Gregory joined us as winemaker in January 1999 and produced a crackerjack vintage first up.

What happened to the sheep? Well might you ask! Well they're still there although there's not as much money in wool these days. We still run about 1500 Merino wethers on our other farm south-west of Penola together with 2000 cross-bred ewes for prime lamb production. We also raise about 400 prime lambs here at Coonawarra.