Colvin Wines

De Beyers vineyard is one of the oldest vineyards in the Hunter Valley, established by the De Beyer family in the late 19th Century. John Colvin bought the vineyard in 1991 and now John with his wife, Robyn, have continued to build on the De Beyers family and subsequent owners’ work, concentrating on bringing the vineyard to a standard of which they and their predecessors can be very proud of. John and Robyn were fortunate in having Robyn’s father, Dr David Smiles, one of Australia’s leading soil scientists as an advisor for many years.

In 1999 the first commercial bottling of wine to go under the Colvin Wines label was bottled. This was the first commercial vintage of the Sangiovese, released to the public for purchase in 2002. From 1991 to 1998 all the grapes grown were sold to Tyrrell’s. The Semillon grapes have traditionally gone into Vat 1 and the Shiraz and Chardonnay to Vat 9 and Vat 47 respectively.

The first publicly available Semillon was the 2001 vintage which, on its debut, won a silver medal in the 2002 Australian Boutique Winemakers Show. Subsequent vintages of the Semillon have proved to be world class with James Halliday placing the 2002 and 2004 vintages in with the “Best of the Best” Semillon in Australia in his Wine Companion. The first Shiraz under the Colvin label was produced in 2003 and the first Rose and Ragamuffin in 2005.