Moppity Wines Champions Emerging Cool Climate Coppabella Wines in Tumbaramba

If you love cool climate wines from Tasmania, Mornington Peninsula (Victoria) or the Great Southern (WA), then it might be time to try wines from the Hilltops region in NSW and Tumbaramba, on the outskirts of the Snowy Mountains.

A great place to start is meet Jason & Alecia Brown, owners of both Moppity Vineyards in the cool climate region of Hilltops in Southern NSW and Coppabella Vineyard in Tumbaramba…. the only, James Halliday, five star rated winery in Tumbarumba!

They have a lot to smile about! Moppity Vineyards has been crowned “Most Successful Exhibitor” for the eighth time in ten years (a record for the show), collecting a total of five trophies, 6 gold medals and 16 other awards at the 2023 Canberra and Region Wine Show.

So where is Tumbaramba?  About 250 kilometres south of Canberra.  The short history of the region is that Ian Cowell, senior wine maker at Lindeman’s, was tasked with finding a region on mainland Australia that could produce premium grapes for Sparkling wine production. He searched for terrain that shared climatic similarities with France’s Champagne region. In 1993, Cowell established a vineyard in Tumbarumba. Who knew!

Tumbarumba is not an easy place to grow grapes. Winter is bitterly cold, Spring is punctuated by severe frosts, the hills are frightenly steep and it is remote, really remote! As Jason points out “Ultra-premium viticulture here is laborious and extremely expensive, however, the most magnificent achievements often begin with the greatest challenges.” Yet there’s a magic to this wine district! Even the wallabies even pose for a picture, its that kind of a place.

Moppity Wines, Hilltops Region in NSW
While many wine lovers know Canberra and Murrumbateman wine districts, the Hilltops Region is closeby and home to Moppity Vineyard. Moppity’s altitude is 600m (in Australia, less than 1% of the viticultural land is at an altitude of 600m or more) and similar to Coté Rôtie in Northern Rhone.

Moppity’s Reserve Shiraz won the “Wine Of Provenance” trophy at the 2023 Canberra and Region Wine Show where judges assessed three vintages of a single wine spanning at least 10 years. Moppity entered their Reserve Shiraz from 2022, 2015 and 2009. So the wine from these regions is award wining and the region has a bright future. It’s time for you to visit these emerging cool climate regions.

Read more about Moppity Wines.