Bandicoot Run Wines

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Longwarry, VIC
Bandicoot Run Wines

Al and Adriana, grower - makers on our farm in Baw Baw Shire, West Gippsland. Our wines are lo-fi and only add a small amount of sulfur prior to bottling.

We farm organically, with a focus on biodiversity and building healthy soil microbiology.

09/03/2026

2026 harvest ✨ We’ve just finished picking our Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Viognier and Syrah and we’re taking the opportunity to have some fun and make something a little different this year.

We ended up cropping around 0.9 tonnes per hectare, with the vines closest to our tree rows doing best. The trees offered protection from the frost which we’re really thankful for… without them we’d likely have had no crop this year.

The vines are looking great and hopefully they can now concentrate on building some good carbon stores for next season so we can have another crack at this crazy thing called grape growing 🤞🏼

21/02/2026

A delightful start to the year. Fresh hay has been cut after a few years off and with some aeration the paddocks are looking better than ever. We’ve had some surprise baby twin lambs born and 18 mm of rain for February, hopefully more coming this week. It’s still really bloody dry though, which showed in our latest honest harvest. There simply aren’t enough flowers out there and the bees are eating their own honey, something they would normally only do in winter.

We’ve also had some pretty magnificent Sunday lunches. A big shout out to Spike at .7healesville and the one and only for the beautiful wine list takeover we did on 8 February. Thanks so much to everyone who came along ❤️

Harvest has officially started. It looks like we’ll be making a few barrels of wine this season from our vineyard, although with what little fruit we have the ducks and blackbirds have been helping themselves 😅. We’ll be supplementing with some negotiant wines which we’re really excited about. Hopefully Floraison and Grillo if all goes to plan 🤞🏼. Al finished building our little winery room just in time for harvest stays and it also happens to be a lovely spot to sit with a home brew and look out over the vineyard.

To finish off summer, we’ve got two new wines landing. The 2024 Ceramic Chardonnay is looking brighter than ever and the 2024 Pinot Noir Rosé which is just a single barrel, topped with Chardonnay post ferment for something different. Both are really expressive and bottled without sulfur.

Now up on the webstore. Trade, please reach out if you’re keen ✨

04/12/2025

Happy Friday friends!

We thought we’d give a little update on how things are going here since the frost on 28th October.

Unfortunately the damage is worse than first suspected and we’re looking down the barrel of around 70% crop loss, which isn’t great but at least vintage 2026 is still happening albeit in a smaller, more limited quantity.

So it’s more or less business as usual here, and the vineyard is starting to at least look a little better with the vines pushing out new green growth.

So, after sweltering through the last couple of days we thought it’s time to release our annual summer wine pack! Offered with a nice discount to sweeten the deal, inside the pack you’ll find:

2023 Ceramic Chardonnay - zesty, zippy, salty, mineral goodness. If you’re planning on fish&chips on the beach this is whatchu want.

2024 Chardonnay - barrel fermented, more elegant and polished, a hint of toasted nuttiness and then stone fruit all the way home. Guaranteed to impress your mum at Xmas.

2024 Pinot Noir Rose - a single barrel of Pinot Noir rose, topped with Chardonnay after fermentation and bottled directly from barrel with no adds. Pur jus.

2024 Lucid Dreams - textural, carbonic, rosato style with amaro vibes and a lick of salt. Anytime, anyplace.

2023 Pinot Noir - Estate blend of 7 clones. Many ferments/ many layers. Looking gorgeous currently and as usual very almost sold out.

2023 Syrah (Viognier) - Medium bodied Syrah, very much made in the style of a Pinot Noir. Lifted fruit carried by an undertow of savoury spice. The “impress dad at Xmas” bottle.

Up on our webstore now (link in bio).

Adriana & Al

28/10/2025

Yesterday we got hit by frost, which is something we have largely avoided up until this point. The damage is widespread and severe, especially in our Syrah and Tempranillo (pictured). It’s a brutal blow as we are only making wine from fruit we grow and it looks as though we are going to have a lot of work ahead of us to try and get the vines growing again and hopefully salvage some fruit.

It’s an exhausting and helpless feeling as we had just completed shoot thinning and thought everything was looking so healthy and promising this year. We won’t know the true extent of the damage to the forming flowers (which is the critical part) for a few more days, so wish us luck…

Al & Adriana x

09/10/2025

Spring moments over the past few weeks. There’s been a lot of beauty ✨

19/09/2025

2024 CHARDONNAY

This time of year there’s nothing more beautiful than the buds of our fruit trees (and vines) starting to emerge, the fresh start and infinite possibilities of a new season ahead. I love the sweet smell of the new shoots from our herbs, oregano in particular. And the abundance of eggs that are rolling in from every direction from our birds.

Every year has been a different start to the growing season. This year it’s been WINDY and really dry and we’re not sure what this means for the season ahead but we’ll navigate it as it comes.

With the warmer weather we’re happy to release our 2024 Chardonnay. It has been with us to a few events around town and trade tastings and it has really come out of its shell, blossoming into the wine that we remember tasting in barrel.

This cuvee is barrel fermented, with delicious fruit purity .. elegant and polished in style (if we can say that about our own wine!?) but full of nuance and character…anyway pretty happy with the outcome. Hit us up via email (trade) or up on our webstore.

Adriana and Al. Xo

01/07/2025

This year we’re pruning our baby vines for the 8th time - time flies! - and things are starting to get easier. We’ve slowly been rectifying the varied and many mistakes we made in the early days, and we’re in a much better (sap) flow now ,which feels really great. It’s a slow journey establishing a vineyard but so rewarding when it all starts coming together 🌱

So here’s some photos of where we are now and reminiscing on where it all started back in 2017!

17/06/2025

Found a couple rolls of film tucked away in the bedside table that we discovered recently. Must be at least three years old because there’s a photo of our ceramic egg getting delivered circa 2022 and also some of A’s earlier prototypes. Times looked greener and pretty blurry somewhat like my memory.

13/06/2025

✨ WINTER SOLSTICE GIVEAWAY✨

Things are quiet on the farm as the Winter Solstice approaches, and we’ve just begun our long, slow journey pruning the vineyard from one end to the other. So we thought let’s warm things up with a giveaway!

What’s up for grabs?

Part One:

A trio of our newest releases from our vineyard here in Gippsland:

🍷 2024 Chardonnay
🍷 2023 Pinot Noir
🍷 2023 Syrah

All organically grown and made by us with absolute minimal intervention — expressive, vibrant, and true to place.

Part Two:

A handcrafted 170mm high-carbon chef’s knife, made by Al, featuring a Tasmanian Blackwood Japanese-style handle and copper spacer.

These knives are super labour-intensive to make and rarely available — a truly special piece.

How to enter:

✅ Like this post
✅ Follow
✅ Tag someone you’d share a glass with in the comments
✅ Share to your story for bonus points

The winner will be drawn on the Winter Solstice – June 21st 🌒

21/05/2025

The weather is most definitely cooling down which is the perfect time to release our new Pinot! We are so very enamoured with this wine which is a true reflection of all the work we’ve put into our vineyard over the last few years.

2023 gave us a true Goldilocks vintage: a cool growing season, generous soil moisture, and a relaxed, mild harvest window. It was a year where the vineyard felt at ease—and the wines followed suit.

For this Pinot, each of our seven clones was picked and vinified separately, using a range of techniques to build complexity. Some lots were hand-destemmed, some whole-cluster, others carbonic or a combination. Maceration ran 7–10 days, beginning with semi-carbonic conditions and finishing with gentle hand plunging. After basket pressing, wines were settled for 24 hours and then transferred to either well-seasoned barrels (average age 10 years) or tank. Élevage was split 70%
barrel, 30% tank, with everything racked by gravity and bottled on-site after 8 months.

If there’s one word to sum up the 2023 Pinot Noir, it’s purity. Ferments were healthy and harmonious from start to finish, and the wine felt complete almost from the outset. It’s layered and bright— showing confected red fruits alongside subtle spice, wet-gravel reduction, and a whisper of earth and
leafy character. Not green—more like that delicate, dry edge of autumn leaves just before they fall.

Exceptionally balanced, everything in its right place. Quite possibly the truest expression of Pinot we’ve made so far.

09/05/2025

AUTUMN SIX PACK

We’ve curated a hearty six-pack of some of our favorites as we transition into the cooler times ahead. Only 12 six-packs available.

Wines:

2023 Ceramic Chardonnay: a wine that will expand your perception on what chardonnay can be. Super mineral, acid driven and showing saline oyster shell-meets-umami notes wrapped around a core of citrus fruit. Zero additions.

2023 Chardonnay: these will be our last bottles available of this wine. Probably our best chardonnay to date. Barrel fermented and a super pure expression of our vineyard. Recently received 94 points from The Wine Front and 16.5+ from Jancis Robinson, who described it as “kick-ass Chardonnay”.

2023 Lucid Dreams: our rosato/chilled red field blend of Pinot Noir, Tempranillo and Viognier. Vibrancy and drinkability, juicy fruit and spiced amaro. A crowd favourite.

2022 Vivarium Pinot Noir: a super energetic and concentrated Pinot Noir and a slightly more wild and free expression from us.

2023 Pinot Noir: an upcoming release. Layered and bright— showing confected red fruit alongside subtle spice, wet-gravel reduction, and a whisper of earth and leafy character. Not green—more like that delicate, dry edge of autumn leaves just before they fall. Exceptionally balanced, everything in its right place. Quite possibly the truest expression of Pinot we’ve made so far.

2023 Reserve Pinot Noir. Everything about the 2023 Pinot is also true in this wine, but a little more. Concentrated red and darker fruit, exceptional length and balance. Super limited.

Use the code “FREESHIPPING” at checkout.

As always, farmed and made by us in West Gippsland and artwork by the sweetest

Address

Longwarry, VIC

Website

http://bandicootrun.com.au/

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