UPCOMING RELEASES AND TASTINGS 2008

1 July - 2006 vintage reds, including premium and reserve wines released

19 July - Annual Open Day at Hillcrest Vineyards, all wines ever made will be opened for tasting

Hillcrest Vineyard is a micro-boutique maker of individual, classically styled wines. Its owners, David and Tanya Bryant, look to the best producers from the famous French regions of Burgundy and Bordeaux as both their inspiration and benchmark.

The style of the wines is clearly influenced by the art of Old World viticulture and winemaking, yet retains the richness so distinctive in Australian wines.

Drawing on their small 38 year-old vineyard in Victoria's famous Yarra Valley wine region, David and Tanya have joined forces with one of Australia's most highly regarded winemakers, Phillip Jones of Bass Phillip.

Phillip's guidance sees the vineyard farmed on organic principles with herbicides and pesticides, together with other systemic spraying, eliminated. Canopy management is critical and season-long attention is provided to each vine. Tiny yields of between 700kg and 900kg per acre produce intensely flavoured fruit which provides a clear expression of its terroir.

In the winery classic techniques prevail. Use of wild yeasts and unhurried, minimal intervention winemaking maximise the potential of the wines. The resulting quality is stunning and the wines are unique with personality, structure and complexity.

Annual production from the original eight acre vineyard is a tiny 400 cases, and they are sold only via mail list and cellar door, together with a small number of selected retailers and restaurants. Recent extensions to the vineyard (six acres planted in 2000 has produced its first crop in the 2008 vintage, and a further six acres planted in 2005 which will not yield any fruit until 2010) are managed under the same philosophies and cropped to the same exacting standards, although the fruit from these blocks will be kept separate and offered under Hillcrest's Village label until the vines are at least 15 years of age.