"Our objective was and is to be one of the top premium boutique wineries in Australia"
* Hand-crafted wines 100% sourced from our biodynamically farmed vineyards
* "Over delivery" in terms of quality ad price
* Wines for everyone, from the beginner to the connoisseur
* Purity and intensity of fruit
* Wines with structure and depth, soft, elegant, easy to drink
* Wines perfect on their own or with almost every kind of cuisine
Our phylosophy is possibly best summed up by James Halliday - "The quality of the wines is exemplary and the prices sensibly pitched."
Maverick Wines Pty Ltd. was established in 2004. The objective was and is to be one of the top premium boutique wineries in Australia.
Although the company is young, Maverick owns 75 acres of vineyards from the top terroirs across the Barossa Valley and Eden Valley. Approximately half of the vines are over 100 years old, and many much older - our Ahrens' Creek Vineyard at Vine Vale has 1840's Semillon, 1840's Grenache, and 1870's Shiraz, while in our adjoining Barossa Ridge Vineyard we have some Riesling from the 1860's! For many years the fruit from these vineyards went into some of the top names of the Australian wine industry - they are now proudly incorporated into our Maverick wines.
Just as important as the acquisition of top terroirs is caring for them in close harmony with Mother Nature. Our vineyards are biodynamically farmed – our Trial Hill and Barossa Ridge Vineyards are Certified Biodynamic and Organic by NASAA (the National Association of Sustainable Agriculture of Australia). Our winery at Vine Vale is Certified Biodynamic. The combination of biodynamic viticulture, old vines (the average age of the vineyard is approximately 100 years old), and effectively dry farming results in very low yields which in turn give a pure and intense fruit which is fundamental for making premium wines.
All of us at Maverick see ourselves as the temporal custodians of our beautiful vineyards which we farm as ecologically as possible. The absence of chemicals in the vineayrd coupled with our minimal water regime encourages the development of vine root growth - even our 100 year old vines have as a result reached down another one or two centimetres further allowing them to access a new Aladin's Cave of nutrients and enhancing nitrogen, water and microbial uptake by the vine, as well as resulting in a healthier and stronger vine.
Maverick makes its own biodynamised 500 from manure from lactating cows - every year we insert this into over 100 cow horns and bury these deep underground in the vineyard where they remain during the winter months. The resulting material is then energised in our 1,000 litre copper biodynamiser imported specially from Italy, and sprayed on our selection of micro terroirs across the Eden Valley and Barossa Valley.
We also make our own organic compost, which replaces in the vineyards the organic matter which is lost through the annual viticultural cycle. This is supplemented by cover crop in all our vineyards, which further opens up the soil, encourages bird, insect and plant life in the ecosystem above it prior to bud burst, and is later slashed and mulched into the soil enhancing nitrogen development.
Probably the most important part of the biodynamic viticultural process is what we do not do! We do not use chemical weedkillers, fungicides or pesticides in the vineyard - these chemicals would otherwise be passed through the vine into the grape and so into the resulting wine. The absence of such chemical additives gives the pure fruit which is the hall mark of Maverick wines. This in turn encourages weed proliferation, which we address through a combination of different undervine weeding techniques and through our 300 or so sheep which are the ideal biodynamic weed eaters (as opposed to weed killers!)
The result is an optimal biodynamic ecosystem which in turn produces high quality/intense/low yield fruit of astonishing purity which is the characteristic of Maverick and of biodynamic viticultural practices and which is the prerequisite for making top wine.
Maverick has been a 5-star James Halliday winery evey year since we began.
Our premium grapes are hand harvested. All Maverick wine is made from fruit grown by ourselves, allowing us to control and optimise the overall process in very close harmony with Nature.
