Australia | Heathcote

Located to the north of the Great Dividing Range, the Heathcote wine region of Victoria is famous for its ancient red Cambrian soils and the production of world renowned red wines made from the Shiraz grape. Heathcote wines are defined by their inky depth of colour, and deep, dark, complex fruit. Voluptuous and well balanced, acid and tannin meld together in a way that does not dominate the fruit, but gives the wine great cellaring ability.

The history of Heathcote is one similar to so many small towns of its era - once a bustling gold mining and logging town it brought people of many different cultures and nationalities to the region, with hopes of making a gold fortune.

To the north of the town, those immigrants disillusioned with mining struck a new type of gold, with the development of land for grazing, cropping and vines. Henning Rathjen was one of the early German settlers to arrive to the Colbinabbin area, at the northern end of the Mount Camel Range in today's Heathcote wine region in the 1850s; however, it was not until the 1960s that the real wave of development in the region occurred.