Pipan Steel

For Paula Pipan and Radley Steel, it’s been a long journey in search of a dream, of bringing their girls up in the country on a vineyard. The vineyard would not be planted to just any grape variety, it had to be nebbiolo. Their search for suitable land took them to the Hunter Valley, Margaret River, Italy and ended on a hillside of decomposed granite soil in Mudgegonga in North East Victoria in the foothills of the Australian Alps. And so Pipan Steel was born. Under the sponsorship of Tyrrell’s Wines winemaker Andrew Spinaze, Paula was accepted into the wine degree at Charles Sturt University. Radley, a sports medicine practitioner, moved his practice to North East Victoria and became the viticulturist. Three nebbiolo clones were sourced from Gruppo Matura in Italy and planted in east-west oriented rows down the hillside, which drops from 410m to 390m. Each clone is vinified separately, and each wine spends time in large, seasoned French oak for 2 years and then another 2 years in bottle before release. -JENI PORT