Winery Information

A Family Business

 

Mount Avoca is in the foothills of the Pyrenees ranges, just outside Avoca in central Victoria - an easy two hour drive from Melbourne.

 

An historic wine producing area, with the first vineyards planted in the 1880’s by Edwin Horatio Mackereth, the Pyrenees has re-emerged as one of the premium wine growing regions in the country.

 

John and Arda Barry had long been searching for the region and land where they would begin their own vineyard. After many years of searching Victoria’s many wine regions, they settled on the Pyrenees for its clay and gravel soils, cool climate and dry conditions.

 

Planting began in 1970 which makes Mount Avoca the second oldest vineyard in the region. Today the vineyard includes the red varieties: Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot as well as the white varieties Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. The conditions of the Pyrenees have resulted in low yields of excellent quality fruit year after year.

 

Arda designed the many buildings on the property and the original Mount Avoca logo and labels which are still used today.  The triangle is symbolic of the mountain range surrounding the winery, the shield representing the trees and countryside. Our label and logo are highly visible and, together with our wines, have carved a distinctive niche in the Australian wine market.

 

Using the high quality fruit to produce wines with intense fruit characters, the wines are always well balanced, and while having obvious longevity are wines of finesse and style.

 

Progress…

 

A small winery was built in 1978 to produce the first commercial vintage and has since evolved into a modern well equipped winery four times its original size with space for over 300 oak hogsheads and a modern bottling line. This enables Mount Avoca to do everything on the estate from growing the grapes through to packaging the finished wine.

 

The Mt. Gambier stone tasting room commands views of the vineyard and

Pyrenees Ranges. A shaded picnic area, barbeque and rotunda are available as are boules for a game of petanque over a glass of wine.

 

Today…

 

Second generation winemaker Matthew Barry, university qualified, leads the team and works to ensure that his parents ideals of quality and purity are present in every bottle. This combination of old-fashioned values and modern technology is just one of the secrets behind the success of Mount Avoca.