STORY BY MICHAEL HARDEN, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

When Renata Morello and her husband Ollie Rapson bought an established vineyard near Lancefield in 2013, they arrived with little more than a desire to make wine and a can-do attitude. Granted, Ollie had gained viticulture certification and had assisted a winemaker mate with a few vintages but the business of making and selling their own wine from scratch was something the couple had to learn on the job.

Fast forward eight years and Renata and Ollie have turned the Macedon Ranges vineyard into a self-contained winery called Lyons Will Estate. They’ve expanded the vineyard from two to five hectares, extending the inherited chardonnay and pinot noir blocks and planting gamay and riesling, built a winery and cellar door, renovated their house and have been producing a range of single vineyard wines under the Lyons Will label since 2016. Not bad for a couple whose previous expertise was in physiotherapy (Renata) and marketing (Ollie).

“Most of what we learned about making wine was self-taught, a mixture of reading, researching and talking to people who we respected and who knew what they were doing,” says Renata. “I’ve recently finished a PhD and Ollie is always willing to jump in and learn on the go, so I guess we’re both just really interested in self-learning.”

Renata and Ollie decided to divide the wine-making between them. He looks after the chardonnay and pinot noir, she the gamay and riesling.

“We decided to split the winemaking duties this way so that there would be no confusion about who was making the wines and who had the final decision about how it would be made,” says Renata. “I suppose it also means that if something goes wrong, we know who’s responsible too.”

Nothing has gone wrong so far, something that Renata puts down to the quality of the mentoring and advice they’ve had not just from Ollie’s mate Shaun Crinion who makes wine under the Dappled label, but also from Macedon winemakers like Llew Knight from Granite Hills Winery and Matt Harrop at Curly Flat.

“With the riesling. I wanted to make it in an old school way, using wild yeast ferments and putting it into aged barrels so that you can build complexity and texture,” says Renata. “It’s very different to the style of riesling that Llew makes at Granite Hills but he was always around to chat through ideas with me.

“The style of wines Ollie and I wanted to make were the ones that go well with food,” says Renata. “ I come from a European background – my dad’s Italian – so I grew up with wine at the table, something that’s an integral part of eating and socialising and celebrating. We also wanted to do everything at the winery, from picking through to bottling to running the cellar door. I think that’s part of the European influence too”

The cellar door at Lyons Will overlooks the beautiful property and offers seated tastings that are available with or without a platter of local meats and cheeses. Open the second and fourth weekend of each month, the sit-down tastings bring a relaxed pace and a more immersive experience than the usual tasting “where people are racing off to cover five or six wineries in a day”.

“The Macedon Ranges is a beautiful area that many people have never really explored,” says Renata. “Why not slow down, chat with the winemaker, taste some wine and really get to know it?”

Lyons Will Estate

0412 681 940

www.lyonswillestate.com.au

60 Whalans Track, Lancefield