Wine made with sun, soil and love — Meet Angove Family Winemakers

Tell us about your organic wines.

Organics by the Angove Family are flavourful and delicious wines as nature intended: pure and clean, with no artificial herbicides, fungicides or pesticides — just sun, soil and love. Despite the increased costs of production, Angove produces an extensive range of flavour-packed, premium organic wines starting at only $18RRP, making them some of the best value organic wines in the country.

What is the story of your brand?

Angove Family Winemakers is Australia’s leading certified organic grape grower and winemaker, with a deep commitment to sustainability at all levels. With major interests in vineyards across South Australia, the links to the land are as strong as ever, and the desire to protect and improve this finite natural resource is driving much of the development of the Angove brand.

Established 135 years ago by Dr William Angove, the brand has a deep heritage in health and wellbeing. Dr Angove emigrated to Australia from Cornwall in 1886. He entered viticulture when, as a medical doctor, he recommended wine as a tonic to his patients. He then began cultivating vines and making wine.

Made with the gentlest touch and with minimal inputs, the Angove family crafts their range of exceptional certified organic wines from premium grapes sourced from their organic and biodynamic vineyards through McLaren Vale and the Riverland. At no stage during the grape growing or winemaking processes are synthetic chemicals or non-organic inputs used.

What has been the highlight of your brand?

Angove have been certified organic for 15 years, with Angove Organic being the leading organic brand in Australia. One major highlight was being named Organic Business of the Year in 2019. The prestigious award was presented as part of the annual Australian Organic Industry Awards, which recognise the achievements of businesses who are committed to sustainable and organic practice across different sectors.

What has been the most challenging part of the journey?

Pest and weed control without the use of synthetic chemicals is one of the biggest challenges for certified organic grape growing and winemaking.

At Angove Family Winemakers, a unique natural “task force” stands proudly protecting the delicate vineyards which are cared for with the Angove “gentle touch” methodology. The taskforce, made up of Indian runner ducks, microbats, rose bushes and honeybees, are carefully used to ensure environmental balance and sustainability that delivers best-in-class certified organic wine.

Indian runner ducks

Our Indian runner ducks help control the snail population and prevent them from munching on new buds and young, soft shoots. They are essential to maintaining the vineyards in a natural way without the use of pesticides.

Microbats

Microbats live among the native gums among the vineyards, and naturally, control insect species. Similarly, the local bats are a crucial element in maintaining a well-balanced ecosystem that protects the grapes without interfering with the estate.

Bees

Bees are crucial to a healthy and thriving vineyard. Bees within the vineyard act as insect security guards, making the beneficial insects feel safe and protected, encouraging them to stay and defend the vineyard.

Rose bushes

Roses are planted at the end of each row of vines as an early warning system for unwanted mildew, which may be detrimental if it gains a foothold on the vines.

Why is being certified organic important to your brand?

All our wines and promotional material proudly display the bud logo. We see it as a real symbol of the authenticity of our organic status and dedication to being truly organic rather than just making the claim. We know that we, and other certified organic producers, have to go through rigorous testing and auditing to be able to display the bud logo, so it is a symbol of the hard work of all involved to maintain our certified organic status.

It is extremely frustrating that Australian labelling laws have not followed the lead of other countries and stipulated that to use the word organic as part of a brand name, the product must be certified.