Yeringberg

Yeringberg (est. 1863) was established by Baron Guillaume de Pury, one of the foremost members of the influential and wealthy Swiss families who were responsible for the establishment of the Yarra Valley wine industry. In 1862 he purchased part of the vast Yering vineyard from Paul de Castella, and named it Yeringberg, in recognition of the fact that much of it was located on a large hill which looked out over the main bulk of Yering. It was on top of this hill that the first winery was built, and likewise the house. The property has never passed out of the hands of the family, the present owners being Guillaume de Pury, grandson of the founder, and his wife, Katherine. Much of the production of Yeringberg was destined for export: by the late 1860s almost 30 ha of vineyard were established, and these were subsequently expanded. The first winery has long since gone, but the one erected in 1885 still stands in near-new condition. The striking two-storey wooden building, with some passing similarities to the architecture of Tahbilk, must have been a showpiece of technological design in its day. The grapes were carried to the top storey in a hydraulic lift and then crushed into railway trucks which ran along the top storey on a miniature railway line. From hereon the winery operated entirely on gravity. The red grapes would be deposited from the trucks into the open wooden fermenters; the whites into the press, thence into barrels or vats for fermentation. At the conclusion of fermentation the red wine would be drained into the oak casks in the large stone cellars underneath the wooden structure. The original vineyard was planted to shiraz, pinot noir, marsanne, trebbiano, verdelho, pinot gris, pinot blanc and gouais. It was for the marsanne that Yeringberg was most famous. François de Castella commented that, ‘Yeringberg has produced some of the finest white wines ever grown in the southern hemisphere.’ A few bottles of the wine made in the last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th were part of a small museum stock at the winery and, tasted at various times between 1985 and 2000, all had exceptional freshness and youth. When in 1969 Guill de Pury (as he prefers to be known) was persuaded by friends to reestablish a tiny portion of the vineyard on the exact spot planted by his grandfather 100 years earlier, the first grape chosen was marsanne. The varieties also included shiraz, which was uprooted after the 1981 vintage because no one wished to buy it. The 1980 and ’81 vintages were and are superb wines, and the wheel of fortune has turned sufficiently for shiraz to now once again form part of the patchwork quilt of the 3-ha vineyard. The varieties planted are chardonnay, marsanne, roussanne, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, cabernet franc and petit verdot (plus shiraz). Since none of the plantings exceeds half a hectare, the quantity of each wine is of course limited. Two very much larger blocks have been planted on the 483-ha property, one (of 11 ha) leased to Domaine Chandon until 2013, the other (a 20-ha block) with a long-term grape sale agreement to CWA. Ultimately, full operating ownership will revert to de Pury ownership, and children Sandra de Pury (winemaker) and David de Pury (viticulturist) stand to inherit one of the finest vineyards in the Yarra Valley. The wines are primarily sold by mail order (no cellar door sales) and through limited fine wine retail and restaurant venues in Sydney and Melbourne.