Basket Range growers making organically farmed Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Sangiovese from high, cool sites across the Adelaide Hills
Gentle Folk farms 8 ha of vines in the Adelaide Hills and buys from growers across the region. The Hills run about 70 km along the Mount Lofty Ranges, with the highest vineyards at 500 to 650 m. Summers are warm and dry, winters cold and wet, and Summertown and Piccadilly average more than 1,000 mm of rain a year.
Soils are light loamy clay over a sandstone subsoil, laced with schist and quartz. At this elevation, cool nights build colour and flavour in the final weeks of ripening. The vineyards are farmed organically with biodynamic preparations, and the grapes are picked by hand in the cool of the morning.
Gareth and Rainbo Belton both trained as marine scientists, with PhDs on the biodiversity of seaweeds and how the groups are related. That work was built on fieldwork and exact observation, a discipline they now bring to their vines in Basket Range. The first Gentle Folk wine, just three barrels, was made in 2013.
James Ellis joined as assistant winemaker and vineyard manager in 2019, and viticulturist Dr Dylan Grigg, whose own PhD studied old vines, consults on the farming. Production is now 6,000 to 7,000 cases a year, including fruit from growers such as the Turnbull family in Charleston.