Gembrook Hill

Rows, season, and a winemaker’s hand

Each season asks for another pass through the same question: at Gembrook Hill in Yarra Valley, Andrew Marks works as winemaker, where cool-climate Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc de Blancs and sparkling wine sit at the center of the cellar. His formal base was laid at University of Adelaide, but the discipline here is less about polish than proportion: clarity, balance, restraint, and the patience to let the vineyard speak in its own register. Marks also steers The Wanderer and makes MGC gins, a range of work that moves between vineyard and still without losing the thread of the hand. At Gembrook Hill, that thread is narrower and more exacting. IJM gives it a family name, drawn from three of the oldest rows on the property and a few of the youngest vines, joining old plant material, young growth, a father’s initials and a son’s work in the cellar.

Five hectares on red volcanic soil

The vineyard is small enough for decisions to stay close to the rows: 5 ha, about 1500 cases, sustainable farming, old vines left unirrigated on a cool, elevated site. That scale matters. It keeps the wines within reach of the season rather than a recipe, especially in a place built around Pinot Noir and Chardonnay but not limited to them. These wines extend the program without changing its grammar. The site sits in a natural amphitheatre on a northeast-facing hillside, with red volcanic soils and views toward Mt Donna Buang and the Warburton Ranges. The house’s own language is terroir-driven, and here that does not need embroidery: old vines, elevation, cool air, limited production, and a winemaker willing to leave the edges of the year visible. Marks has said, “As a winemaker, every year we are striving to make the perfect wine. And even though we all know that the perfect wine doesn’t exist it doesn’t stop us from trying!” The sentence belongs to the bench because it admits the limit and keeps working.

The cellar door stays close to the family

The tasting at Gembrook Hill is a cellar door tasting, family-hosted, quiet in its pace and intimate in scale. The room is rustic rather than staged, elegant without calling attention to itself, and the view does part of the work: mountains and ranges beyond the hillside, the vineyard held in its natural bowl. There is no need for a loud room around wines built on restraint. The setting keeps returning the glass to the ground it came from, red volcanic soil below, cool Upper Yarra air above, old rows within sight. In that context, the family presence is not a hospitality flourish. It is part of the method, because the person pouring can speak from the property rather than from a script. The last detail to hold is IJM, where three old rows and a few young vines turn family memory into a wine from Gembrook Hill.