Journeys End Vineyards are located in South Australia, an internationally renowned region noted for producing ‘sunshine in a glass’ - wines with superb, ripe fruit flavours that the world has fallen in love with. Whilst Journeys End Vineyards has a traditional Australian spread of wine styles, the wines do not come from the same vineyard site. There are of course good reasons for this, and they form the basis of Journeys End’s winemaking philosophy.

Traditionally many of Australia’s vineyards were planted out to multiple grape varieties, which was partly done for practical reasons: winemakers were required to create a range of wine styles to cater for a broad customer base. Not everyone likes Chardonnay, and if you like it today you may not like it in the future. Another reason for planting a spread of grape varieties was because viticultural districts were relatively new and there was insufficient experience to know which grape varieties would produce the best wines from any area. As the Australian wine industry matured and newer plantings were made around many new sites in every State, it became apparent that some locations were better suited to specific grape varieties, due to the terroir – which was unique to their particular vineyard.

During the 1980’s, the big innovations in the Australian wine industry were to do with winemaking, however, in the decade of the 90’s and up to now, the innovation is in the vineyard. Australia now has sufficient acreage planted, in a diverse range of sites to be able to confidently say that one district produces better quality grapes on a consistent basis than another district, and furthermore within each district there are specific, small, discreet sites that produce exceptional wines from only one grape variety. This is the notion of 'terroir' – the search for the best sites suited to a specific grape variety. That search examines the interaction of various elements of micro climate, rainfall distribution, drainage, soil profiles, orientation, slope, etc.
It is these very specific sites that Journeys End Vineyards is concerned with.

Having located the right piece of ‘terroir’, skilled vineyard management is then paramount; there can be no denying that 90% of the quality of any wine is made in the vineyard. Quite simply, great grapes make great wine. In order to achieve the desired flavour profiles of each grape variety, yields are kept low, irrigation is minimal and vineyards are managed in an environmentally sustainable manner with minimum use of chemicals. Uncompromising dedication to this philosophy means that Journeys End Vineyards can consistently offer wine lovers maximum flavour for their dollar.

Journeys End winemaker, Ben Riggs likes to run a number of different types of ferments, which also gives him additional blending options. In the winemaking process, there are no fixed rules as to the amount of new or old oak that is used. French, American, Russian or other. Each season demands a different proportion of new and old oak and different degrees of charring or even ‘hot water bending’ of the staves. Consequently, a variety of top quality barrels are selected to enhance the fruit of each wine and add further ‘layers’ of complexity.