Northern Tasmanian Wine Region

The island state of Tasmania makes up a single Wine Zone, under Australia's classification system of Geographic Indicators. Unofficially however, it is sensible to recognise Northern and Southern Tasmania as separate wine regions.

Although the latitude would suggest that the climate in Tasmania would be much cooler than Victoria in fact the viticultural environment as measured by heat summation is quite similar to the cooler Victorian regions. Site selection is very important for successful ripening of all but the earliest maturing varieties.

The Northern Tasmanian Wine region has its major concentration of vineyards in the Tamar Valley to the north of Launceston. Serious winemaking started in the late 1970s with the establishment of vineyards in the Pipers Brook region.

In 2010 Brown Brothers acquired the vineyards and wineries owned by Gunns. This gives Brown Brothers a cool climate source of grapes. This will also impact on the Broader Tasmanian wine scene as a large dedicated wine company will now be applying their expertise to viticulture, winemaking and marketing

There are many boutique wineries in Tasmania, but a couple of the major players in the Australian industry have Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyards for producing sparkling wines.

Among the smaller vineyards in this region it is not surprising to see that cool climate varieties like Gewurztraminer and Pinot gris are chosen.

Northern Tasmanian Wineries with Alternative Varieties