When Andrew Margan left Tyrrell’s after 20 years, he already knew a thing or two about vineyards — and, more importantly, how to recognise a good one.
By then, he had planted five acres of vines on the family’s Ceres Hill farm. It was a beginning, but just the start. Great wine businesses, like good houses, need more than a front door. They need foundations, structure and, ideally, a few strong corners.
For Margan, three of those corners would become Saxonvale, Fordwich Hill and Timbervines. Saxonvale came first. Established in the late 1960s on a great patch of country in Broke Fordwich, it was once a vineyard, winery and wine brand in its own right. The winery and label have disappeared, but the vineyard remains: 29 hectares of old ground on the Fordwich Sill, now leased and cared for by Margan as custodians of this historic site.
Then came Fordwich Hill. Originally established by Lindemans in the 1970s, the vineyard has been under Margan’s care since the early 2000s. It is a site shaped as much by aspect as by soil. Its east-facing gullies catch the clean light of morning while escaping the worst of the afternoon heat — a useful advantage in the Hunter’s warm inland climate. The wines that come from here tend to carry that geography with them: natural acidity, fragrance and a certain restraint.
And then there is Timbervines. First planted to Shiraz in the late 1960s, it still carries some of its original rootstocks. Today, the vineyard is a patchwork of Chardonnay, Semillon and different Shiraz clones. The Semillon material traces back to the De Beyers vineyard in Pokolbin, planted by the late Frank Margan around 1960 — a living thread connecting one generation of Hunter Valley viticulture with another.
What joins these vineyards is not simply ownership or history. It lies beneath them. In the north-western corner of Broke Fordwich, amid the more familiar soils of the Hunter Valley, sits an unusual geological island: the Fordwich Sill. More than 200 million years ago, molten rock pushed underground here and slowly cooled.
Over immense stretches of time, it weathered into a deep, iron-rich red clay — doleritic soil quite unlike much of the surrounding country. It is rich in iron and phosphorus, eager to take up rainwater and reluctant to give it back. In a warm, dry-growing region, that matters. The vines do not get an easy ride. Their vigour is deliberately kept in check, encouraging roots to push deeper into the soil and concentrating what the plant puts into its fruit.
