Whistling Eagle Vineyard

This is a remarkable story. Owners Ian and Lynn Rathjen are farmers living and working on the now famous Cambrian red soil of Heathcote. Henning Rathjen was lured from his birthplace in Schleswig Holstein by the gold rush, but soon decided farming provided a more secure future. In 1858 he made his way to the Colbinabbin Range, and exclaimed, ‘We have struck paradise.’ Among other things, he planted a vineyard in the 1860s, expanding it in the wake of demand for the wine. He died in 1912, and the vineyards disappeared before being replanted in ’95, with 40ha of immaculately tended vines. The core wine is shiraz, with intermittent releases of sangiovese, viognier, cabernet sauvignon and semillon. -JAMES HALLIDAY