Place of Changing Winds: Is this Australia's Next Best Pinot Producer?

Every year we look forward to the new release of the Place of Changing Winds wines. Founded by Robert Walters who has worked in wine buying and distribution for the past 20 years, Robert is now devoting some of his time into developing wines that are expressive of their place. 

Located in the foothills of Mount Macedon in Central Victoria, Robert was assisted by local hero Michael Dhillon (Bindi) in finding the site after being on the hunt for 5 years. The area is historically known as Warekilla, which in local Wurunjeri language means Place of Changing Winds, and thus, the story begins.

Sitting at 500m elevation, POCW has 45,000 vines planted across 3.1 hectares of vineyard which consists of predominately rocky soil. All sites are dry grown, although there is irrigation in place for extreme conditions. Due to the precise care and maintenance of the vineyards at POCW, they have developed a system of agriculture which is extremely labour intensive.

 POCW is a self-contained environment that’s organically farmed, meaning, they do not use any synthetic sprays, herbicides or pesticides. One of their most notable achievements comes from their work with high density vines. The vines of POCW are planted at 10,000-30,000 vines per hectare, which is incredibly close and produces extremely expressive grapes full of finesse.

High density vineyards force the vine roots down which in turn make them pump from the sub soil which ultimately reduces yields per vine significantly. The idea behind this practice is to produce high quality wines of concentration and great expression of each site.

We have been lucky enough to be offered the following wines at Vera:

• Place of Changing Winds Tradition White 2022
• Place of Changing Winds Tradition Red 2022
• Place of Changing Winds 'Winds Larderdark' Chardonnay 2022
• Place of Changing Winds Between Two Mountains Pinot Noir 2022