Warwick Billings

This is the venture of Warwick Billings and partner Rose Kemp. Warwick was a cider maker in the UK who came to study at Roseworthy and got diverted into the wine world. He completed a postgraduate oenology degree at the University of Adelaide in 1995 and worked for Miranda Wine, Orlando and Angove Family Winemakers from 2002 to 2008, along the way moonlighting in France and Spain for 12 vintages. Warwick's approach to his eponymous label is self-deprecating, beginning with the name Wowique and saying, ‘Occasionally a vineyard sings to the winemaker. [We] have taken one of these songs and put it into a bottle.' The vineyard in question is planted to an unusual clone of chardonnay and nurtured on a sloping hilltop site in Mt Torrens. Warwick's final word on all of this is, ‘The winemaking is unashamedly inspired by Burgundy, but care is taken to acknowledge that the soil is different, the clones are often different, the climate is definitely different, and the end consumer is usually different.' -JAMES HALLIDAY