Elena Brooks

The Path

Training at Adelaide gave Brooks her formal start before her first steps into wine took shape in Bulgaria, where language and cellar work were intertwined. She worked as a translator/interpreter for visiting Australian winemakers at Bulgarian winery in Bulgaria, a role that required moving cleanly between voices, contexts, and the practical demands of the cellar. That work offered a close view of how wine is discussed, assessed, and shared, beyond the glass itself. She later served as interpreter for barrel tastings and host for tours at Bulgaria's wine tourism in Bulgaria, extending that experience into the public-facing side of the trade. Those roles now sit behind Elena Brooks’s work as founder and winemaker of Dandelion Vineyards.

The Work Today

At Dandelion Vineyards, Brooks works as winemaker in McLaren Vale, with the vineyard and the season setting the terms of the work. Her craft extends across award-winning wines from McLaren Vale, the Barossa, Eden Valley, Adelaide Hills, and the Fleurieu Peninsula, a range that shows breadth without losing contact with origin. Wonderland, a Riesling from a gnarled and venerable vineyard planted in 1912, is notable in that range. The planting year matters here: the wine is shaped by old vines with long memory, and the point is visible before the bottle is even opened. Brooks’s approach is summed up in the line that defines the estate: “At Dandelion Vineyards, we believe that great wine is made in the vineyard.”

Signature

Elena's signature wines include Lion’s Tooth of McLaren Vale Shiraz Riesling, Lionheart of the Barossa, Menagerie of the Barossa, Honeypot of the Barossa, and Red Queen. Read together, they point to a winemaker working with nuance, and with enough restraint to let each region keep its own voice while the range still holds together.

In Their Words “At Dandelion Vineyards, we believe that great wine is made in the vineyard.”

Acclaim

The recognition around Brooks’s work is tied to award-winning wines made across those five regions, with Wonderland offering a clear marker of the vineyard-led approach. The acclaim sits less in a single headline than in a body of work where site, patience, and translation of place into wine remain the throughline.