Stefano Lubiana Wines

The Free Bacchus Story

When Steve and Monique Lubiana planted above the Derwent River outside Hobart in 1990, they were choosing one of the coldest and most marginal sites for viticulture in Australia. Ripeness was not a certainty in any given year.

They then converted to Demeter certified biodynamic practice, in a place where the attentiveness that farming demands is repaid rather than wasted — a marginal climate punishes inattention immediately. The estate is self-sustaining in the way biodynamic philosophy actually intends rather than merely describes: chickens, cows, composting, cover crops, and a market garden supplying the on-site restaurant all form part of one farm system.

It is one of the few Tasmanian vineyards to have held biodynamic certification long enough for the soil improvements to show up visibly in the wine. The Primavera Chardonnay and the Vintage Sparkling have drawn 95 points from James Halliday, and the Pinot Noir has found an audience among collectors who find Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula styles too warm.

Treated pine posts were taken out in 2010 and steel used for new plantings, a more expensive post chosen because the cheap one leaches into the ground it holds up.

Serious Tasmanian Pinot Noir remains a small category. Lubiana is one of the producers who defined what it could be, on a site most people at the time thought was too cold to bother with.