Chris Ringland

Hard pruning above Stone Chimney Creek

Hard pruning comes before the cellar at Chris Ringland. Chris Ringland, winemaker at Chris Ringland in Eden Valley, Australia, works from a hillside property in the Barossa Ranges where old Shiraz roots go deep into decomposed podzolic clay. His formal path began with oenology study at the University of Adelaide and Roseworthy Agricultural College, followed by cellar work in the Barossa Valley, including Rockford Wines. The estate and label of his own began in 1989, and the winery was born with the release of the 1998 vintage. The material has stayed close to old-vine Shiraz, particularly the dry-grown, pre-phylloxera vines at Stone Chimney Creek. Ringland bought the Eden Valley property in 1993, a high, rundown site with an old wool shed, older olive trees, and a small patch of ancient Shiraz vines. The work here is not built around a polished tasting-room gesture. It is a grower’s place, shaped by a hillside, a cellar, and the decisions that follow fruit from a small vineyard into individual lots.

Small batches, long oak, full ripeness

The stated method in the cellar centers on gentle destemming and vinification in small, individual batches, keeping parcels separate long enough for the maker to make specific calls. Ringland’s Shiraz is harvested at full ripeness, then handled with a simple early-stage vinification that limits intervention rather than multiplying technique. Open fermenters and hand-made processes sit alongside a barrel program influenced by Gran Reserva Rioja, with extended time in new French oak barriques giving structure and ageing potential. The vineyard work is just as decisive. The Stone Chimney Creek vines stand on a Southern, North-East facing hillside, protected from Southerly storms, with weathered rock from the Paleozoic age beneath them. Those old roots draw on clay that stores summer moisture, so the vines do not need irrigation. Ringland prunes hard, feeds gently with natural nutrients, and covers the vineyard with bird netting as soon as the grapes begin to color, holding the crop for full ripeness rather than rushing the pick.

A cooler ridge above the valley floor

The place feels removed because it is. Eden Valley sits above the warmer Barossa floor, and this altitude changes the discipline of Shiraz. The grapes here are often picked two to three weeks later than vineyards below, a delay that keeps acid and focus in fruit that still carries Barossa depth. In cooler years, pepper can enter the glass; in warmer floor sites, the register moves toward prune, chocolate, and a thicker midpalate. At Ringland’s property, the cellar, the vineyard, and the old wool shed belong to the same working frame. The quiet is part of the method. There is hillside wind, netted fruit, barriques, and the pressure of waiting.

Three Rivers still in the line

The portfolio reaches beyond the estate Shiraz, but it keeps returning to the same red-wine discipline. Signature bottlings include Chris Ringland Shiraz, Three Rivers, and CR Barossa Shiraz, with Grenache, Mataro, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Nebbiolo also in the house vocabulary. The small scale matters because it keeps selection close to the hands that make the wine. When the next vintage is judged in barrel, the measure will still be the Stone Chimney Creek Shiraz.