Our Winemaker

After a lifetime of making other people’s wines Brien Cole decided it was time to do something special for himself, thus out of the worst kind of hubris was born 3 Acre Vineyard. A vineyard where Brien can practice all the skills of a lifetime, all the crazy ideas deemed too left field for a commercial vineyard. A vineyard where he could combine all the best viticultural traditions with innovations and adaptions designed to bring about the best expression of his varieties. Brien has decided to concentrate on only two varieties, Sangiovese and Pinot Grigio, each a tiny one and a half acres each.

In The Vineyard

Brien planted the vineyard in 1998 as part of a large commercial planting, in this planting he included an experimental block of Sangiovese, just to see how it would go. It went well and this Sangiovese block is now the cornerstone of 3 Acre Vineyard. The vines now sixteen years old are starting to show the serious potential of “cool climate” Sangiovese on the Mornington Peninsula. An equal sized block of Pinot Grigio completes the 3 Acres giving Brien a chance to produce a fresh, crisp style of Pinot Grigio and an intriguing but always tiny amount of Rosato which combines the two.

In The Winery

Brien likes to keep it simple in the cellar. He works hard in the vineyard so he doesn’t need to work hard in the cellar. Only the best fruit makes it into the cellar so Brien can focus on producing clean, pure variety driven wines. “All I want,” he says, “are perfect expressions of fruit and in the Sangiovese framed in elegant oak.”