ADRIAN HOFFMANN

Adrian grew up on the property spending a lot of time with his grandfather, Gordon.  Fortunately for Adrian, this time together meant that Gordon shared his deep-rooted knowledge of the district, the family farm, and farming.  He also encouraged Adrian to learn on the job, tolerating mistakes and allowing him to learn from them.

In 1992 Adrian left school and spent time learning the farm, working in the family’s general engineering business, and studying his qualification at TAFE.  In 2002 he joined Gordon and his father, Jeff, on the farm fulltime at the age of 27.  It was from this moment onwards that Jeff began to hand Adrian the responsibility of running the farm, and this was the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the family business.

A contemporary wave of thinking was soon evident with Adrian transforming both the vineyard and their approach to farming.  Adrian started to focus on long-term, loyal relationships with smaller winemakers rather than depending on the larger wineries.  He selected and aligned with premium wine producers who were good business operators, ensuring stability within the business.

Around the same time, Adrian started to farm the vineyard as sub-blocks, tailoring the management of vines based on micro-soil differences and winemaker needs.

This focus meant it was natural for the area under vineyard to grow.  When Adrian took hold of the property in 2002, the Hoffmann family had just 20 hectares of vineyard.   Today, they have 135 hectares and this continues to increase.

Adrian now works with over 30 individual wine producers, each producing diverse styles of wine and varying in production size.  He possesses a rare source of multi-generational, viticulture knowledge – an innate understanding of the dirt, climate, vines – which he complements with the latest research, a marketing focus, and a commitment to continually developing the vineyard.