Secluded amongst the cool, rolling hills of the Blue Dandenongs, Paternoster Winery was founded in 1985 as one of the first premium vineyards in the Cardinia Region.
Carefully chosen for its deep, free draining, chocolate-red soils, mild summers and lingering, humid autumns; the Paternoster vineyard provides ideal conditions for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Our Pinots are renowned for their flavours of: ripe plum, dark cherry, and violets with soft, integrated oak.
Our Chardonnays, of fresh, light tropical fruit, hints of minerality, developing to honeyed, nutty, integrated oak.
THE VINEYARD
Our densely planted vineyard (2000 per acre) receives only hand attention (pruning, canopy control, harvesting) with an absolutely strict adherence to cropping levels of 1-1.5 tonnes per acre.
This discreet, five acre vineyard is non-irrigated and totally free of insecticides and fertilisers.
This approach ensures a focus on producing small quantities of exclusive, premium quality wines that possess a long, silky texture, complex flavours and sweet, perfumed fruit, with an excellent balance of natural acids.
Our Pinot and Chardonnay grape crushing is slow and gentle, our Pinot pigéage process is soft and manual, with no pumping over.
Both Pinot and Chardonnay pressings are slow and restrained, with the chardonnay juice going straight into our temperature controlled, cool, barrel-fermentation process.
All of our wines are matured in French oak barrels with minimal racking for a soft and subtle influence. Maturation beyond 15 years can be expected.
Our wines are then bottled without fining, only our Chardonnay receives a delicate, polishing filter.
Paternoster Wines exclusively use Procork bottle closures, a natural cork closure coated at both ends with multiple, clear, thin membranes, allowing oxygen to pass through at a consistent rate, enabling the wine to properly mature and develop, without contamination.
OUR WINES
There are three wines in the Paternoster Classification, each brings the unique, delicate signatures of the Paternoster vineyard:
Premium
Classically Full Flavoured
Jack of Hearts
Reserve, Intense with Satin Texture
Heaven’s Door
Prestigious, Concentrated, Powerful
The “JACK OF HEARTS” Reserve Range. From year to year, when the marriage between the newly fermented wine and the various French oak barrels is particularly outstanding, a wine is selected and bottled separately to become part of our Reserve “JACK OF HEARTS” range. These wines are very rare and display a supreme intensity of texture, flavour and complexity.
The “HEAVEN’S DOOR” Prestige Range. Much rarer than the “Jack of Hearts”. Production is exceptionally limited and is not made every year. These wines are a “lifetime” drinking experience and are of the highest distinction. They have been compared most favourably against the Grand Cru wines of France. These wines must display immense flavour, power and extended luscious palate before being considered for the prestigious “HEAVEN’S DOOR” label.
What People Are Saying
“Sincere wine and quite capable of being profoundly memorable ie: '05 Reserve opened recently was benchmark for Victorian Pinot. Mighty good pinot and chardonnay. I'll be back....“
“Amazing small, little winery and cellar door. Philip is an amazing host and makes one of the best wines I’ve tasted so far here in Australia. Worth a visit (or a detour)!”
”Amazing Pinot, fantastic local winery. Highly recommend this wine.“
“Authentic, unpretentious, discrete, small winery with a great host. Off the usual tourist roads on one of the same name, just out of Cockatoo. Straight from the shed of the winemaker is what wine tasting should be like. Nothing quite like it. Phillip is passionate about how he makes his wines in the French style. Complex flavours and great texture, which have developed with age. The youngest wine on offer is from 2012. I was able to taste most on the list which was awesome. The 25 year old port was a great finish.”
“One word: amazing! Very small winemaker that focuses on making every wine perfect in a French fashion. Releases wines only when ready, which means that most of the wines come with a few years of age. Something unique for the region and Australia. Must visit.”
”Phenomenal wine by a boutique winery. Not your standard commercial cellar door experience, instead a very personal and insightful tasting.”
”Beautiful, smooth, flavoursome Chardonnay. Lovely visit. We will definitely visit again.”
THE VINTNER
Phil Hession
Vintner & Owner
Philip was studying Electrical Engineering at Monash university when his interest in wines developed. He attended multiple wine appreciation courses conducted by the late Colin Richardson, and when trying to seek out a particular wine, Colin suggested contacting the original “Victorian Wine Centre” in South Melbourne, owned and managed by Stan Majewski. Stan was a walking encyclopedia of the world’s best wines.
It was through Stan that Philip was introduced to some of the great wines of the world, Bordeaux, Burgundies, Sauternes, German Rieslings and Portuguese Vintage-Ports.
The association with Stan also allowed Philip close exposure to the Central Victorian winery Virgin Hills, where during vintage he enjoyed the first-hand experience of crushing, barrel-racking assemblage and bottling.
It was fortunate that the head of the Electrical Engineering Department, the late Professor Doug Lampard, also happened to be a world-renowned authority on microbiology and wine analysis. Doug instilled in Philip the essential skills for the management of clean, healthy wine ferments thus allowing a controlled but minimalist approach in the transition of grape to wine.
Paternoster’s first commercial wine release was a 1989 Pinot Noir.