Aussie. Vegan. Sustainable – meet the wine making a difference

At Oxford Landing, great-tasting wine doesn’t just happen by accident. It’s part of a unique, holistic process that puts quality produce front and centre

The elements and topography conspire to create the perfect growing conditions at Oxford Landing. The near 750 acres of vines are surrounded by native vegetation, all situated near the banks of the Murray River, which is the longest in the country. Growing in an area known as the Riverland, the vines are split into 130 five-acre blocks, so they can be treated as distinct ecosystems.

Oxford Landing winemaker Andrew La Nauze explains: “The Riverland has a Mediterranean climate – hot summers with very little rainfall. There’s a lot of what we call mallee scrub, which is a type of eucalyptus. The red, sandy soil we have out there is very free-draining, on a base of limestone. But the critical thing for us is we're right next to the Murray River. When you've got irrigation water, it's a fantastic area for growing citrus, stone fruits and grapes, as there’s very low disease pressure.”

All this ensures healthier fruit and longer harvesting windows for the best possible flavour once the wine – from the alluring Merlot to the all-conquering Sauvignon Blanc – reaches your glass.

Find the right Oxford Landing wine for you

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“Sustainability is in our DNA”

The reason Oxford Landing exists is down to one man: the late Wyndham Hill-Smith. Together with viticulturist Norman Hanckel, he chanced upon the Riverland in 1958 while scouring the land for the perfect soil to plant vines. Decades of hard work and good wine later, his son Robert launched the Oxford Landing brand in 1990, and the business is run by family to this day.

With great wine, however, comes great responsibility. In its characteristically genuine style, Oxford Landing sums itself up as “Aussie. Vegan. Sustainable.” But it’s more than just a slogan – it underpins the brand’s whole ethos. Zero animal products are used in the wine production, and 100% of the winery wastewater is proudly recycled. The lightweight bottles and recyclable cartons also reduce the carbon impact in terms of transportation and waste. All these conscientious efforts have led to the winery receiving a Sustainable Winegrowing Australia accreditation.

“Sustainability is in our DNA,” says Andrew. “We have a long, rich history and we've just moved into the sixth generation of family ownership, so it’s always been a part of our business. We believe in doing less to our wines, in a sense, so they’re more pure.

“At our vineyard, we have a large amount of native vegetation on land that we purchased from a neighbouring property and revegetated. We’ve planted more than 200,000 trees in that time, which gives us a ratio of two hectares of native vegetation for every one hectare of vineyard. It’s a system of holistic production – not just growing the grapes, but the distribution and supply chains too. It’s not always easy to balance that with consumers’ expectations, but it’s incredibly important we act sustainably.”

Meet the winemaker

Andrew La Nauze grew up in the Barossa Valley, the world-famous wine region, and after starting out as a radiographer, he soon found the vines calling him back. He joined Oxford Landing as a winemaker in 2012, and he’s never looked back.

How would you describe your role at Oxford Landing?

“My role is to turn the grapes that we grow in the vineyard into wines that we can then sell to our customers. We have a lot of great people doing so many different things for us, so the best way I can think of to describe my role is as a conductor of an orchestra. I'm not actually the one who’s playing the instruments, but I'm the one ensuring that they're all playing in unison, so we can get the right outcome.

I’ll make decisions on when to pick the grapes, and how best to turn them into wine so they are giving the best expression for the variety. It goes all the way through to seeing those wines into the bottle.”

What made you decide to change your career?

“As a 21-year-old radiographer, I was living to work. I woke up one day and thought ‘there’s no room for creativity.’ I thought if I continued this for the rest of my life, I might wake up when I'm 40 or 50 and go: ‘Wow, I really wish I’d done something else’. So, I took the decision to change to something where I could express creativity and something closer to my heart, having grown up in the Barossa Valley.”

What’s it like tasting your own wine for the first time?

“It's very exciting when the first ferments start ticking away and the juice goes from being this sweet, sugary liquid to this effervescent, wonderful-smelling liquid that's in the glass right in front of you. You can always tell when the wines are fermenting because they just smell delicious, and you go ‘Yep, I think we're on to something!’ It’s something that gets me out of bed, particularly during the grape harvest when you’re doing long hours, but every morning you get up and you know you’re going to taste those ferments.”

So, which Oxford Landing wine is your favourite?

“Our Chardonnay, because it’s the most grown-up, if that makes sense. It has a lot of complexity, a lot of sophistication. It's quite fun to make because we do a number of different things to add complexity. For instance, we'll blend a bit of reserve wine from barrels into the final blend. We also let some parcels go through malolatic fermentation, and ferment others with natural or wild yeasts.”

Want to discover more about Oxford Landing’s unique story?