Chalmers

Bruce and Jenni Chalmers began growing wine grapes in the mid 1980's.  Over the years their original Euston NSW vineyard grew to become the most diverse and one of the largest privately owned vineyards in Australia.

The sustainable viticulture techniques Chalmers implemented and refined at this site have been widely taken up by Australia’s warm climate irrigated regions to improve water efficiency and fruit quality using less water and chemicals.

Bruce and Jenni’s vine propagation business, Chalmers Nurseries, was responsible for importing a selection of around 70 clones and varieties that were introduced to Australia in 2000 and have been a major factor in the diversification and improvements in quality seen in the Australian wine industry in the last decade.

In an effort to encourage and celebrate this diversity Bruce Chalmers, along with Stefano de Pieri and the late Dr Rod Bonfiglioli, established the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show in 1999.  This show began with only 28 entries and now receives around 600 entries covering 83 different varieties and hosting a series of events which bring together growers, producers and consumers each year in Mildura Vic in November to share their knowledge and experience with alternative varieties.

Since selling the Euston vineyard and nursery in 2008 Chalmers have established two new smaller vineyards in Victoria: one in Heathcote and one in Merbein in the Murray Darling region.

The new Heathcote vineyard, in the northern part of the GI on the Mt Camel range, promises to continue the pursuit of quality and reduction of environmental impact with only drought and heat tolerant varieties being established in the high density, state-of-the-art vineyard.

The Merbein property has been established to what the Chalmers consider to be the three most promising varieties for the future of warm climate viticulture with the remainder of the property housing a source block containing the entire Chalmers collection of imported varieties.

Chalmers is truly a family business as the vineyard operations are overseen by Bruce and Jenni Chalmers with eldest daughter Kim managing the wine business from the vine to the wine list.  Daughter Tennille joined the business full time in 2010 after a ten-year career in hospitality, most recently as a sommelier and in 2011 Kim's husband, winemaker Bart van Olphen completed the family team.

 Chalmers has two Victorian vineyards, one in Heathcote and one in Mildura, where they produce all the fruit for their own brands as well as working with other boutique producers growing select parcels of Italian varietals to order.

The Chalmers family no longer source any fruit from their original vineyard at Euston which was sold in 2008.  The last Chalmers wines produced from this site were made in 2010.  From vintage 2011 onwards Chalmers wines all originate from the two new Victorian vineyards.  Chalmers branded range from Heathcote and experimental small batch bucketwines from Mildura.

Both these sites have been selected for their suitability to growing Mediterranean and southern Italian varieties so they are warmer sites with relatively dry growing conditions.  They have both been established with sustainability and quality as primary concerns and have so far produced promising results.

The Chalmers wines are made at Kooyong on the Mornington Peninsula. Winemaker Sandro Mosele’s winemaking philosophy fits with the Chalmers’ venture perfectly. His minimal intervention winemaking techniques ensure that the predominant character in the finished wine is varietal expression. 

Over the years of vinification trials, covering some 15 different varieties, this approach has allowed eventual selection of the varieties that consistently produce distinctive wines, characteristic of their variety and reflecting their new environment.

All the fruit for these wines is hand harvested and, in most cases, selectively harvested to ensure only the perfectly ripe, unblemished fruit goes into the wines.

The fruit is delivered to Kooyong where it is chilled in the 500kg bins in whole bunches overnight and processed the following morning. In line with the ‘hands-off’ approach implemented by Mosele, all wines are produced by wild ferments and there is little use of new oak in any of the wines, with a minimum five year old French oak being used in most cases.

The result is that the collaboration between Chalmers’ viticulture and Mosele’s vinification has enabled the creation of bold, unique wines that reflect their stylistic heritage while expressing their contemporary Australian habitat.

One of the major concerns of the Chalmers family is protection, preservation and re-establishment of the native flora and fauna on their properties and minimal impact on the environment from their viticultural pursuits.

The Chalmers family acknowledges that climate change is a reality and is constantly taking positive steps to reduce their carbon emissions and chemical use while implementing high-tech systems to ensure highly economical water consumption.

Through their nursery’s varietal selection and importation program, and subsequent vineyard trials and evaluation, Chalmers have identified and cultivated grape varieties that are naturally more resistant to drought and heat.

This means quality fruit in warmer growing regions with less water requirement and usually also higher resistance to disease. These attributes mean that as our wine regions get warmer and drier we have the opportunity to continue to create wines of great quality while putting less stress on natural resources and using less chemicals.

Many of the vineyard applications used in the production of the Chalmers range of wines are organic with a view to operating at both the Heathcote and Merbein properties in a fully organic regime in the coming years.