When Smith & Sheth was first imagined, founders Steve Smith and Brian Sheth’s dream was to craft impeccable wines from vineyards of exceptional quality and share the pleasure, culture and craft of these fine wines with like-minded people. Sharing not only the wines we love to make, but also the wines we love to drink from around the world, seemed like a natural extension of our philosophy.
We are excited to offer our wine community a special opportunity to purchase wines from one of Australia’s most exciting new producers – Place of Changing Winds.
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Place of Changing Winds
“Place of Changing Winds – the place and the vineyard – may well be the most exciting ‘new’ development in Australian wine. It will jump straight on to elite lists of Australian wine producers. You could describe this endeavour in one word: uncompromised.”
~ Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
Who is Place of Changing Winds
Place of Changing Winds is a high-density vineyard in the southern foothills of Mount Macedon in central Victoria, Australia. The name comes from the original inhabitants, the Wurundjeri people, who named this place Warekilla, or Place of Changing Winds. This description still holds today.
At Place of Changing Winds, the goal from day one has been to establish a level of viticulture that can compare favourably with the very finest micro-estates of any region, anywhere in the world. To this end, they have developed an agronomical system that requires a great deal of fastidious, manual work with a team of at least nine (three permanent and six experienced seasonal workers) for much of the year, for only 3.1 hectares of vines. They make three sets of wines: Estate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from their own vines; Syrah and Marsanne from two growers to our north; and, occasionally, Tradition bottlings that blend the two.
Awarded the 2021 New Vineyard of the Year by the Young Gun of Wine Awards, and Best New Winery of the Year 2022 by the Halliday Wine Companion Awards, the Place of Changing Winds has a motto of “no compromise, no regrets,” and is receiving acclaim that absolutely justifies this philosophy.
Collections
ESTATE SERIES
In the southern foothills of Mount Macedon in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria, the altitude 500 metres above sea level, and the vines surrounded by native plantings and thousands of hectares of forest. It’s a genuinely cool site, with good rain, cold nights and a wide diurnal range. One of the most distinctive features of this vineyard is the high density, with over 45,000 vines planted across 3.1 hectares and densities of mostly 12,000 and 14,000 vines per hectare and significant plots at 20,000, 25,000 and 33,000 vines per hectare. Over the last decade the team have developed a system of agronomic practice that is adapted specifically to this special place. It involves meticulous viticulture with no synthetic chemicals used and a great deal of manual labour. The cellar is next to the vines meaning the fruit goes directly to the fermenters in a matter of minutes and everything is managed onsite, including bottling. The Estate Series wines reflect both place, and a no compromise approach.
GROWER SERIES
Place of Changing Winds also produces Syrah and Marsanne from two vineyards further north, in warmer climes. Syrah is sourced from a plot in the Heathcote region on the famed, red “Cambrian” soils of the Mt Camel Range. This site is considerably warmer than the estate vineyard and lies about 130km north of the cellars. The second vineyard is in Harcourt, 85km to the north, and supplies Syrah as well as Marsanne and Roussanne. Harcourt is cooler than Heathcote yet still warmer than the estate, and the soils are pure granitic sands. This is a particularly exciting and largely unexplored terroir for Rhône varieties.
Working closely with both growers, the vines are managed organically, and the Place of Changing Winds team are involved in all the viticultural decisions, from pruning right through to choosing the picking dates. From both places, the goal has always been to produce savoury wines of great perfume and digestibility.
As the New Zealand importers for the Place of Changing Winds, through Smith & Sheth you have exclusive access to the small volumes of the Estate and Grower Collection wines.
