Established: 2014

Appellations: GI Tasmania, TAS

Proprietor: Gemma Upton + Paul Laing

Winemakers: Justin Bubb and Anna Pooley (from 2024 - prior wines made by Tasmanian Vintners)

Wine Making Overview: A generally hands-off winemaking approach, with minimal added sulphur to facilitate wild-yeast ferments and natural malolactic conversions. Some whole-bunch inclusions for the red wines. Maturation in an assortment of vessels, including stainless steel, concrete ‘eggs’, older barrels and new French oak puncheons. All wines filtered, but bottled unfined.

Vineyard Area: 8 ha

Viticulture: Sustainable

Vineyards: Estate fruit from Mapleton with other neighbouring properties purchased later, Woodlands and Lynwood (all located at the top of Middle Tea Tree Rd).

Vine Density: 5 000 / ha

Average Production: 1 500 Dozen

Vegan Friendly: Yes

 

Mapleton Vineyard, situated near the hamlet of Tea Tree in the Coal River Valley Wine Region, is owned by the Laing family, Paul and his parents Denis and Kathryn.

The vines are grown on what was originally three adjoining properties, Mapleton, Woodlands and Lynwood. The first property, Mapleton, was purchased by Paul in 2004. Paul and Denis had often discussed the idea of planting a vineyard on Mapleton, given its ideal aspects of gently rolling northern facing banks and rich dolomitic soils, but it wasn’t until 2014 that the thoughts became a reality.

The first planting of 1 hectare of Pinot noir was initially planned to be followed by a further 4 hectares the following year. An exciting opportunity arose, however, to purchase the neighbouring property known as Woodlands. Woodlands has approximately three of its hectares in vines, the first of which are plantings dating back to 1992. When the Laing family acquired the property the vines had been in a serious state of neglect for many years. Today, after several years of hard work and a lot of TLC the vines are once again producing some truly amazing fruit including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and a small amount of Cabernet.

Lynwood was purchased six months after Woodlands, and Kathryn and Denis now call that property home. Lynwood has 4 hectares of vines including, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling, all planted in 2003. These vines had also been struggling for some time to produce fruit and in 2017 after the first year under new management only a small quantity of Pinot Noir was harvested and bottled. Our 2018 vintage was wholly sourced from Lynwood and yielded a fabulous Pinot Noir, a Pinot Noir Rose, a Chardonnay and a Gold Medal winning Riesling that also won the Trophy for Best 2018 Vintage Wine at the 2018 Tasmanian Wine Show.

WINE NOTES

Image Gallery

2022 Chardonnay - VERY limited
100 % Coal River Chardonnay from Marengo, Brinktop, Bremley and the Bubb + Pooley vineyard on White Kangaroo Road. The clonal mix is predominantly P96, with some I10V1. Fermented in one 1500 L concrete sphere (40 %) and a mixture of barriques (25 % new oak). NO malolactic conversion. Stylistically Justin and Anna see this vintage as more in tune with their goals of freshness and higher acidity.

2022 Pinot Noir
100 % Coal River Pinot Noir from three vineyards in the Coal River Valley: the Bubb + Pooley vineyard on White Kangaroo Road, the Brinktop Vineyard in Sorell and Bremley vineyard near Campania. The fruit was hand picked and wild-yeast fermented with 20% whole bunches with 20-25 days on skins with pumping over once per day for minimal extraction. Matured for 10 months in a mix of concrete tulip (10%) and French oak puncheons (90%) with 25% new oak.