About Us

Derwent Estate is a family owned and operated wine business situated just 20 minutes North of Hobart - the largest city in  Tasmania. Located at 42 degrees south latitude this is genuine Cool climate Viticulture. Tasmania is rapidly gaining a reputation as Australia’s premier Pinot Noir, Riesling and Sparkling wine producing area.

When we say family operated - that’s exactly what we mean, with 3  generations of family members currently involved in the business. Planted on the historic Mt Nassau property which has been in the current owner’s family since 1913, Derwent Estate Wines was part of the diversification program.

The property has seen a vast array of ventures over the last 100 years or so including Sheep, Cattle, Vegetable production, seed crops, poppies, quarrying and the production of lime. Viticulture is the next exciting phase in the history of Mt Nassau.

About Derwent Estate Wines

This is our story...

Our family has worked the land on the historic "Mt Nassau" property since 1913. 
Vigneron Andrew Hanigan (pictured) is the fifth generation of his family to farm the picturesque site of Derwent Estate on the north facing banks of the Derwent River, just 20kms from Hobart. Established in 1993, the Limestone based alluvial soils and the river setting provide a perfect micro-climate for the production of world class cool climate grapes and premium wine.

Growing grapes has always been a passion for us and we're proud to say that as viticulturalists we remain very hands on, doing all the vineyard work ourselves.
The vines are lovingly hand pruned, shoot thinned, tucked and picked to ensure that no stone remains unturned in the pursuit of perfection.

Planted to the ideally suited varieties of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc we are now in a position to bring you the finest cool climate wines in Tasmania, with only one string attached . . . we'd love to hear what you thought of our wine.

Andrew Hanigan
Viticulturalist

Nestled perfectly on North facing slopes which run down to the Derwent River, the vineyard has a perfect aspect for the production of cool climate wine grapes.   Plenty of prevailing Westerly winds keep good airflow  through the vines.  Air circulation is critical in helping to keep the vineyard disease free.

We do not use any Insecticides or nasty Pesticides at all.We prefer a softer Integrated Pest Management approach to disease control.

From humble beginnings in 1992 of one variety and block stage 1 of our planting were increased to 4 varieties over 4.5 hectares by 1997.

As Derwent Estate and Granton’s reputation grew for producing stunning fruit, keen interest was attracted by several major wine companies for us to grow small parcels of super premium fruit for them.This saw stage 2 of the vineyard development commence in 2003.  This was a 5.3 hectare planting which would see us supply grapes bound for the Bay of Fires Wines and Yattarna under the Penfolds label.

All of our wines are made by the contract winemaking team at Winemaking Tasmania.

The Team headed by Julian Alcorso liaise closely with the viticulture team at Derwent Estate throughout the year to ensure that the grapes delivered to the winery have exactly the right characteristics to make the best wine possible.

Winemaking Tasmania is a 900 tonne winery built specifically for vineyards like Derwent Estate who prefer to specialize in the grape growing side of the wine industry and leave the winemaking to the professionals. This ensures that valuable capital is not tied up in machinery and equipment such as presses and bottling machines that would only be used for several days per year.