Following 29 vintages and 17 years at the helm of Penfolds, John Duval founded his eponymous winery in 2003. He has since grown John Duval Wines into one of South Australia’s most celebrated producers. Together with his team, he makes wines that are unequivocally ‘Barossa’ while celebrating some of the oldest vines in the world.
Yet John is no longer a ‘one-man band.’ In 2016, his son Tim was welcomed into the business to work alongside John and develop the next generation of wines. We caught up with this duo over Zoom, as a Kookaburra chirped in the background- to chat all about Barossa winemaking, Tim’s journey into the business, and what the future holds for John Duval Wines.
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After a successful career with Penfolds, you founded your own winery. What was your founding goal with John Duval Wines, and how did it evolve over the years?
John: I should probably delve a bit into the Penfold's days because they impacted why I started my own project. As I went up through the ranks, I seemed to get further away from the nitty-gritty of winemaking. I spent less time in vineyards and tasting the barrels and more time working with the executive committee.
It was important to have a winemaking voice at that table, and I still think it’s very important for wine companies to have a winemaking voice at the top, but it was getting more corporate. I thought that if ever there was a time to do something for myself and my family, it was then.
Many people expected me to make small volumes of super expensive Shiraz and say, “This is the son of Grange”, so the first wine I released, ‘Plexus’ [a blend of different varieties from multiple sites], surprised many people. But I love working with these fantastic old vineyards that we've got in the Barossa, many over a hundred years old. I was lucky to meet many growers over the years through Penfolds and build relationships. So, ‘Plexus’ was the first wine I made. The thinking behind it was that, apart from loving those old vineyards, I wanted my wines to be accessible. Then, the idea was to have a bit more fun with small volumes of top-end wines.
One of the guiding directions of my winemaking is to make elegant expressions of old vineyards using balanced, fine-grain French oak. Some of that goes back to the Penfolds days, but I’ve had the opportunity to develop new wines with more French oak influence that remain 100% Barossa. So, there were some guiding lights, but I didn't want to put a Penfolds stamp on it. These are my own thoughts, my own philosophies.
(L) John winning Red Winemaker of the Year (C) John in the 1980's (R) John with 'Plexus'
Could you talk us through the geography of the Barossa Valley and the areas you work with?
John: On a macro level, there’s the border zone of Barossa and then the two valleys, the Barossa Valley and the Eden Valley. And I think it’s important for people to understand that when something's labelled as just Barossa, it is often a blend of the two valleys. They are quite different from each other, even if they aren't necessarily huge distances apart. The Barossa, as a whole, is a pretty small geographical area, but we have quite a different variation in soils and climates within a small space. At John Duval, we source more from the western part of the Barossa Valley, which is lower-lying, maybe 250 to 280 metres above sea level. Then, in the Eden Valley, we get a higher elevation where it’s a little cooler, and the fruit ripens a little later.
Having those two areas in our winemaking arsenal is stylistically important. We blend some elegance from the cooler climate and higher elevation of Eden Valley into the richness and structure we often get from Barossa Valley. We source from many different sub-regions across the Barossa Valley and the Eden Valley, with elevations from around 250 metres to well over 500 metres. So, you can imagine there's a lot of variation in picking times and the varieties suited to each site.
That variation is also extremely important to us. We work with many small batches in our winemaking, and our ethos centres on picking out the teeth of small parcels from great vineyards across both valleys. We keep these individual parcels separate, so we've got a lot of amazing blending options.
How do you go about sourcing and finding these areas and these plots?
John: I'd done 29 vintages before I went out on my own, so that helped a fair bit in terms of knowing where the best vineyards were! We don't own one vine but instead work entirely relationship-based, knowing where the better vineyards are and working very closely with some fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-generation growers. To this day, we don't have a contract. We have the Barossa contract, which is a handshake deal!
Tim: There’s always been a strong tradition in the Barossa of growers and winemakers working hand in hand. Over the years, those kinds of relationships have stayed strong, particularly with the original ‘Plexus’ vineyards - from the very first vintage in 2003 through to today. Working closely with growers is crucial, and I think growers enjoy working with small, quality-minded producers. We only align ourselves with growers that share our quality philosophy.
We work more closely with some younger growers and spend more time drilling down on quality. Likewise, there are some sixth—or seventh-generation growers who have spent more time in their vineyards and know every square inch like the back of their hand. Their knowledge is unbelievable. It would be pretty arrogant for us to tell them what to do. We have more of a symbiotic relationship with our growers; we give feedback on what we're looking for from the sites and grow together. We love spending time in vineyards and spend just as much time in vineyards as we do in the winery. And that's just of the utmost importance to John Duval Wines and in making the wines we want to release, that kind of relationship with the vineyard and the growers.
(L) Grower Mike Scholz delivering hand-picked Mataro to John. (C) John and Tim in the vineyard (R) John with Roussane grower Marcus Schulz
Could you talk us through some of your prime vineyard sites?
Tim: The business is built on blended wines. ‘Plexus’ is made of several grape varieties from multiple sites, scattered mainly across the Barossa Valley, while ‘Entity’ is a regional blend of 10 to 12 different Shiraz sites. These are the wines that built John Duval wines, and they have that consistency you can get from multiple vineyards spread across the region. However, what we want to do with the ‘Annexus’ wines is highlight important sites we work with and create a transparent expression in the glass.
There's an important place for both styles. The ‘Annexus’ wines unpack some of the sites that have gone into ‘Plexus’ and ‘Entity’ over the years. For example, the 1858 planted ‘Stone Garden’ vineyard in the Eden Valley, which makes the ‘Annexus’ Grenache, and the 1918 Mataro vineyard used for the ‘Annexus’ Mataro. For the ‘Annexus’ Shiraz, we've got a lot of unique sites to choose from. So, each year, we rotate to a different site, allowing us to deconstruct some of these blended wines and hero growers and their stories while making compelling wines.
When is the decision made for a wine to become a single vineyard?
Tim: It's one of those things where you can have a eureka moment and go, wow, this is just absolutely singing. The ‘Annexus’ Mataro was born when we saw how good it looked during fermentation in 2016.
John: There are different stages where you've got an inkling. We're in vineyards a lot, and you can tell by just tasting the fruit from the vine that it will be pretty good this year. There are also the decision steps: fermentation, maturation, and blending, whether you can crown it or not.
Tim: The great thing about being a fairly nimble team of two is that we can make decisions pretty quickly. We can also afford to take a few indulgences for ourselves and separate out parcels or put something towards a small release if we're compelled to, which I think is a nice luxury to have.
John: It's about keeping the brand fresh, looking after your customer, and giving people something interesting. And you’ve got to remember there's a next generation to come on board as well.
Ebenezer Shiraz Vineyard
That does segue nicely into talking about you for a bit, Tim. Winemaking and grape growing are a huge part of your family history—what inspired you to follow that path?
Tim: There was never any kind of pressure from Mum or Dad to go into wine. While studying commerce and law, I worked in wine retail at some pretty nice bottle shops in Adelaide. It was a pretty handy university job because it was half social, half work, getting to meet a lot of young winemakers and building up a palate. So, whilst I didn't consciously do it to build that up or start making those connections, I think in the back of my mind, I probably thought, well, this might be handy one day.
I was a lawyer for almost eight years, but I still couldn't keep away from wine. My practice was mainly built on agriculture and wine, which was great because I was passionate about the industry. And then, one day, Dad sat the family down and said, “I'm not going to carry on forever as a one-man band. Is there any interest in becoming involved?” At the time, I was the one who said, “Yeah, I'm really interested”.
That just started a family discussion and a process. I had to build up the skills and bring something to the company. It was with some trepidation but also excitement that I came back to the business and gave it a go.
John: When he was at university, he worked part-time with me for a while, so we had tested the relationship and already knew we could work together.
Tim: Exactly. I think it's so important to have that compatibility, but you certainly don't want to just mirror each other and have the same thoughts. You want to have fresh ideas and opinions, as well as respect. It's a working relationship, and you've got to get the best out of each other. When I first started, it was very much a learning phase and trying to unlock the knowledge Dad had built up over fifty years of winemaking, and hopefully, for him, it was also nice to have a fresh opinion and to have someone else to bounce ideas off.
John: I count myself very lucky because we get along very well. I think one of Tim’s strengths is his elegant palate. That's the kind of wine we like to make. Tim was very lucky that many of his friends were in the industry, and many were reps with good portfolios they were selling. Tim was trying more international wines than I was before he joined the business!
Tim: It's important to keep tasting, especially when you're in that development phase. I had a thirst for understanding international styles and tasting as much as I could. I built up my own views about Barossa, drinking with my contemporaries who are making waves in the valley now. And that experience, along with the knowledge that I'm getting from Dad, will help to keep adding to our story. There's so much to uncover here in the Barossa still. So many good stories to unpack. I feel like we’ve still got many generations of opportunity to continue that story.
What do you think the next few years hold for John Duval Wines? Are there new sites you’re looking to work with or new varieties?
John: Well, as a senior partner in this duet, I'm pulling back a bit. So, I think the future is more in Tim’s hands than mine. Although, I will have a point of view.
Tim: And I'd be silly to ignore those views! A lot of what I'm doing is trying to continue the platform that Dad has created, and I do so with a lot of pride. I'm certainly not looking to revolutionise John Duval Wines. Dad often talks about trying to find these gradual points of quality improvement, these little evolutions as you go, and that's how I imagine the next decade will go. Maybe I'll be taking the lead on some more things, but we'll just be looking for improvements where we can. If an exciting new site does come up, we'll think about it, look at it, see how it might fit within our winemaking, and have some fun with it.
I think we certainly see that broader push towards more mid-weight wines that have freshness while not throwing out the generosity of fruit that we've got in the Barossa. There's an opportunity to speak to a demographic of drinkers who want something that they can go back to for a second glass with a degree of elegance. So, there are some exciting things that we can pursue.
An evolution of Grenache has been going on for maybe a decade here, but there's still so much left to do. I think we're uncovering more sites and handling Grenache better and better.
It’s exciting for us to have another story to tell outside of Shiraz, to have a variety from which we can make more mid-weight wines with aromatic lift, texture, spice and savouriness. I think it's exciting because of that drinkability, but also the history. We're talking about Grenache vineyards that are sometimes 160 years old, the oldest plantings of this variety anywhere in the world. So, if that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will.
Yeah, and the climate here is well suited to Grenache. We're very fortunate.
So, to answer your question, it's certainly going to be, little by little. If an exciting parcel comes up and we see an opportunity, then we'll consider it. But I've already gotten in a little bit of trouble for adding a few new wines over the last three years. We're consolidating a bit now, but it'd be nice to continue that journey and find new things that keep the brand relevant, too.
For more information about purchasing John Duval Wines, please contact your Account Manager. Not yet a customer? Contact Us to discuss opening an account.