Wilimee

In the Macedon Ranges, on a patch of ancient, rare Cambrian soil that sits at 600m above sea level and neighbours a sacred greenstone quarry once mined by the Wurundjeri people to make stone axes, is a small, family-run vineyard by the name of Wilimee. Winemaker Ben Ranken, his wife Sally Richardson and their children moved to the region in ’13, purchasing the old Portree vineyard and returning it to its indigenous name. The vineyard, established in '82, is planted solely to chardonnay and pinot noir. These two varieties dominate Wilimee’s small range of minimal-intervention wines. Inspired by stories of bottles recovered from shipwrecks, Ben keeps a portion of bottled pinot noir aside each year and matures it for a further five years underwater (large wine tanks filled with dam water are used due to the winery's distance from the ocean) before release. -ANNA WEBSTER