Region & History

In 1838 the Scottish Ryrie brothers planted Victoria's first vines on the banks of the Yarra. Their grazing land was known to the Wurundjeri, the area's original inhabitants, as Yering, and the name has survived to this day. For twelve years, winegrowing there was merely a side project alongside sheep farming. In 1850 the Swiss grazier Paul de Castella bought the property and turned it into Yering Station.

With his fellow countryman Samuel de Pury, he had cuttings brought in from half of Europe, including some from Château Lafite. The young vineyard won the Argus Gold Cup in 1861 as the colony's best vineyard. Two de Castella brothers followed his example. Hubert founded St. Hubert's in 1863, and that same year the Swiss-born Guillaume de Pury built Yeringberg next door — three wine estates packed into a tiny stretch of land, all established by the same generation of immigrants.

What followed wasn't a pest, but a shift in taste. Phylloxera, which devastated half of Europe, was not the main reason the vineyards along the Yarra disappeared. Dairy farming simply paid better, and from the 1890s onward, family after family tore out their vines. In 1921 Yeringberg pressed what would be the region's last commercial wine for a long time, and by 1937 not a single vineyard remained along the whole Yarra — only pastures and milking sheds.

For almost fifty years, all was quiet. It wasn't until 1969 that the botanist Bailey Carrodus planted twelve hectares anew at the foot of the Warramate Hills and named his winery Yarra Yering. His 1973 vintage was the valley region's first commercial wine since 1921. Two years earlier, the physician John Middleton had discovered a property nearby called Mount Mary. In 1972 he planted Cabernet Sauvignon there and released his first vintage in 1976: a Bordeaux blend he named Quintet.

In 1996 the relevant register officially recorded the name Yarra Valley as a geographical indication, the protected designation of origin that Wine Australia still administers today. Since then, only wine from here may bear that name. From the former pastures of Yering, Coldstream, and Healesville, a wine region grew once more — one that now ranks among Australia's most renowned, without concealing its short, twice-interrupted history.