Amelia Nolan guides dig into intensive terroir-driven project at Alkina Wine Estate, Greenock, in the Barossa Valley
Amelia Nolan, general manager and wine maker at Alkina Wine Estate in Greenock in South Australia's Barossa Valley, at left with Chilean terroir specialist Dr Pedro Parra in one of the pits dug on estate (see map) for the polygon project of micro blocks. The pits reveal geological variations for growing old grenache vines such as schist and clay (bottom centre) and limestone (bottom right).
Images courtesy Alkina Wine Eastate and Young Gun of Wine website
Amelia Nolan led the ground-breaking micro-terroir polygon project at Alkina Wine Estate at Greenock in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, telling a new story of geology, wine and terroir.
As general manager and wine maker at Alkina, a revived old property, Nolan and vineyard manager Johnny Schuster from 2020 created a certified biodynamic vineyard, growing Barossa heritage varieties but reflecting their terroir intensively by dividing the estate into micro blocks called polygons. Each tiny plot of vines was mapped geologically, and then picked, vinified and matured separately.
Nolan’s journey to the Alkina former farm property took her around the world. She grew up on a farm in South Australai’s Wrattonbully region. Nolan embarked on a wine career after a bachelor of arts, majoring in literature, and an associate diploma in wine marketing from Adelaide University in 1994. Starting at BRL Hardy’s Reynella office in the international division in 1995, Nolan developed its major brands in the North American and European markets, leading to a transfer to the London office in 2001. After the company became Constellation Europe, her role focused on sales, marketing and brand strategy for its prestige brands including Mondavi, Quintessa and Ravenswood.
After 12 years at BRL Hardy and Constellation, Nolan was recruited as managing director of Argento Wine Company, owned by Bibendum Wines UK and Bodegas Esmeralda of Argentina. She spent seven years in London developing Argento’s distribution into 55 countries and forming a winemaking and production team in Mendoza. In 2012, Nolan worked with the Argento Wine Company owners to sell the company to a private wine group owned by Argentine businessman Alejandro Bulgheroni.
Following more than a decade in London, Nolan returned to Adelaide with her husband and two young sons to embark on a new project with Bulgheroni in Australia. In 2015, they bought the old vineyard and farm in Greenock and transformed it as Alkina. Old vines, first planted to vines by Les Kalleske in 1955, were rescued, while new vines and native vegetation were planted and the vineyard certified organic and biodynamic. A winery, luxury accommodation and tasting room were reimagined and renovated from old buildings going back to the 1850s.
Alkina’s ground-breaking micro-terroir polygon project began with 10 hectares of vines, growing to 43 hectares on the 60-hectare property, with shiraz, mataro and semillon the main varieties across 37 blocks. Forty hectares were certified biodynamic in 2018. The Alkina polygon project was conducted with eminent Italian winemaker Alberto Antonini and Chilean terroir specialist Dr Pedro Parra.
More than 160 pits were dug to analyse soil variations across the vineyard and data was combined with electromagnetic conductivity scanning to build a detailed terroir map. At an average 0.3 hectares, the polygons became terroir-specific micro parcels for producing wine; some bottled as flagship releases and others blended.
Dealing with some of the world’s oldest vine-growing country (600-700 million years), Nolan said “the variation under the surface is immense.” Below the topsoil, the terroir was mostly schist (grainy rock) and clay with varying iron and quartzite, along with smaller areas of chalky, sedimentary limestone/calcrete and others of wind-blown limestone.
Since 2018 vintage, Alkina vinified the polygons separately and “the results have shown us extraordinary differences in wine flavour and structure from one polygon to the next". An example given was Polygon 3 – 0.3 hectare of grenache on sedimentary limestone – as “elegant, lifted, delicate and red-fruited, with fine mouth-coating tannins”. Next door, Polygon 5 – grenache on schist with some clay and iron – as “more powerful, darker fruited and wilder with more structured tannins.”
