Winemaking

Forest Hill wines are cool climate in style; Our aim is to produce elegant and distinctive, approachable wines understated in style that express in their unique ways the essence of the mature vineyard that is Forest Hill.

The Forest Hill philosophy is to make wines of the highest quality, each having their own distinctive regional character. The core of the vineyard, the mature, forty five year old vines and the combination of our climate, with warm days and cool nights, ensure a strong regional identity repeat. Forest Hill follows the practice of having unirrigated vineyard produces low-yielding harvests which give maximum fruit quality and hence flavour intensity. With our own winery facility in Denmark and passionate winemaking team in place, we control all aspects of the winemaking, allowing the Forest Hill identity to be maintained and monitored. This ensures all Forest Hill wines are made with dedication to our philosophy and a determination to produce premium quality, unique wines. This is true at the three levels we market, the Block Series, the Estate Range and our Boobook Range.

Clémence Haselgrove, Chief Winemaker Forest Hill

Forest Hill’s Senior Winemaker, Clémence Haselgrove has, together with her enthusiasm and exciting philosophy, a very special pedigree. She was born and educated in the Bordeaux region in France and decided, at the age of 17, that she had to be a winemaker. A magical wine and food experience with a great Médoc and Rabbit Chasseur in the right setting decided her career. As she says, this changed her life: “I had to find out how to do this, not just a profession, but as an integral part of my life. Wine, good wine is a living thing and I wanted to have it as an important part of my life”.

Clémence did her degree and training in the Bordeaux region and began work there. But she wanted to do more than simply be part of carrying on an important winemaking tradition. She wished to experiment with different grapes in different regions and was attracted to Australia because of the opportunities here. She spent a number of years making wine in Coonawarra and came, eventually, to Forest Hill Vineyard in 2006.

She came because, as she puts it, “I was attracted by the opportunity to have my hands on this vineyard, to help develop the potential of the mature vines, and discover their regional expressions. Every year the challenge is a new one, a continuous process of learning, in which one has to “listen” to the grapes. How you assess the grapes is vital”.

Clémence’s philosophy is simple, “The personality and quality of the grape will determine the personality and calibre of the wine. As a team we respect the unique fruit that comes from our vineyard and concentrate our skills on creating from them premium, distinctive wines expressing the individual qualities of our region and each variety.”