Wynns Coonawarra Estate

Wynns Coonawarra Estate is the region’s preeminent producer, holding the largest and most historic vineyard holdings on the terra rossa strip. Its triple-gabled winery is not just a label motif but the original building that gave Coonawarra its start.

John Riddoch and the Fruit Colony

The estate’s story begins with John Riddoch, the “Squire of Penola,” who settled the district in 1861. In 1890 he subdivided a block of the red terra rossa soil into four-hectare allotments and called it the Coonawarra Fruit Colony, recruiting growers to plant it; twenty-six colonists set out the first vines in 1891. To process the fruit he built, in 1891, the triple-gabled winery — originally named Chateau Comaum — whose silhouette is now the estate’s emblem and one of the most recognised images in Australian wine.

Riddoch had backed the right soil but the wrong moment. Demand for Coonawarra’s table wine collapsed after his death in 1901, and for decades the great winery was reduced to storing fruit and very nearly became a wool shed.

The Wynn revival

Rescue came in 1951, when the Melbourne wine merchants Samuel Wynn and his son David bought the languishing property and put the region back to work. David Wynn took over operations in 1953 and did something quietly radical for the time: he put the region’s name on the label, using the word “estate” to tie the wine to its ground — an early Australian articulation of what would later be formalised as the Geographical Indication system. The triple-gable was printed on the label, where it has stayed ever since.

The wines

Wynns built its reputation on Cabernet Sauvignon grown on the terra rossa, the variety and soil pairing for which Coonawarra is now internationally known. The estate range runs from the accessible Black Label Cabernet up to the flagship John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon, first produced in 1982 and named for the founder — a selection of the best parcels, matured in new oak and built to cellar for decades (see oak cooperage for how that wood shapes the wine). In 2016 the John Riddoch became one of the first Australian wines released through La Place de Bordeaux, a mark of its standing.

Winemaking today

Sue Hodder has led the winemaking since the 1990s, her first Wynns vintage in 1993. Her long tenure has been defined by a careful, site-faithful approach — extensive replanting and vineyard restoration, and a house style that favours structure and freshness over sheer weight, letting the cool Coonawarra fruit and its firm tannin speak. It is a style built on the region’s genuine advantage: ripe Cabernet from a cool corner of South Australia, with the acidity to age.