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16°C
Open Hours: Open Daily 10.00am - 4.00pm Closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day
Both the Spring Vale homestead and the cellar door building are heritage listed. The cellar door is actually a stable, which was built by convict labour in 1842. The stable has been preserved (with minor restorations necessary) and is now a unique cellar door building with a very historic feel. In the same room, a modern Macrocarpa pine bar and wooden wine racks have been installed, to offer a great mixture of old and new.
Spring Vale is situated at Cranbrook, north of Swansea on Tasmania's East Coast. The Freycinet Coast could otherwise be described as the mid East Coast, and Spring Vale is about in the middle of that!
Continuing in the tradition of hard work and innovation established by William Lyne in 1826, Rodney and Lyn Lyne have planted 6.6 hectares of wine grapes at Spring Vale, principally Pinot Noir. The vineyard began in 1986, when a small area of two acres was planted to Pinot Noir. Further plantings were made in the following years: firstly, more Pinot Noir, then Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer, followed by Pinot Gris in 1996. In 2000, more Pinot Noir and a splash of Pinot Meunier was planted.
In June 2007, Spring Vale purchased a neighbouring farm, "Melrose". The purpose of this purchase was to enable decent amounts of a lighter red to be produced, with the first "Melrose" Pinot Noir being the 2008 Vintage. The acquisition of "Melrose" brings the total production in a normal year to 120 tonnes. There are plans in place to plant more Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Pinot Meunier in 2009, which should push production closer to 200 tonnes.
The Freycinet Coast is the driest part of the state, with an average annual rainfall of 550mm. Irrigation is therefore essential. The entire vineyard is drip irrigated. For frost protection, we use overhead sprinkler systems, while one block has a wind machine to blow away the cold air. The soil at Spring Vale is mostly a fertile clay loam, with the subsoil varying from porous friable loam with rock to medium-heavy clay. Drainage is excellent throughout the vineyard and the pH of the soil is around 6.5. A modified Lyre ("U-shaped") trellis system is used in conjunction with vertical shoot positioning (VSP), while the block planted in 2000 has a simple VSP trellis. "Melrose" is entirely VSP. All vineyard operations are carried out manually - pruning, shoot positioning, leaf plucking and harvesting.
130 Spring Vale Road, Cranbrook TAS 7190, Australia