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Yvonne | profile | all galleries >> Australian wine regions >> Clare Valley Wineries >> Skillogalee winery and restaurant, Clare Valley. tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Polish Hill River Wine growing area | The Clare Gourmet Weekend in May, 2010 | Clare Valley Winemakers Gourmet Weekend 04 | Paulett Wines of Polish Hill River | Jeanneret Wines, Clare Valley South Australia | Skillogalee winery and restaurant, Clare Valley.

Skillogalee winery and restaurant, Clare Valley.

Skillogalee operates a wine tasting and sales area and a restaurant from an old stone cottage built in 1851 by a Cornish miner, John Trestrail, who settled here and operated the property, then called Trevarrick Farm, as a mixed home farm. He and his wife had 17 children of whom 13 survived - he was a religious man who, it is said, did not approve of drinking!

The property remained in the Trestrail family until the early 1900's. It was then planted to stone fruit and vines for dried fruit, currants and sultanas. In the 1950's and 60's it became a grazing property until it was bought by Spencer and Margaret George in 1969. It was planted to wine grapes over the next 2 or 3 years - early varieties were Riesling, Shiraz, Grenache and Crouchen (formerly know as Clare Riesling) In the early 1980's, most of the Grenache and all the Crouchen were grafted to Traminer and Cabernet Sauvignon and additional small areas were planted with new Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec.
Skillogalee has a small modern winery crushing only around 250 tonnes, giving us the opportunity to hand-make individual wines in small batches. Fruit handling and vinification are undertaken using the best of traditional and modern technologies - modern winemaking techniques for whites, to preserve the fruit aromas and flavours, and more traditional techniques for reds - the use of open fermenters and basket pressing to maximise flavour and colour without over-extraction. We focus heavily on gentle fruit handling throughout and our winery hygiene programs are meticulous. In this way, we use the minimum amount of sulphur to keep wines safe from spoilage.

Wine MakingWith the same quality issues in mind, we have moved to the use of "stelvin" screw caps on all our table wines to maximise quality and longevity for the consumer. Information from http://www.skillogalee.com.au/