Yarra Valley

Wine Yarra Valley and Wine Australia's guide date the first vines to 1838, planted by the Scottish-born Ryrie brothers at Yering. Charles La Trobe, Victoria's first Lieutenant-Governor, who had lived in Neuchâtel, invited Swiss vignerons; Paul de Castella bought the Ryrie property in 1849, and with his brother Hubert and Baron Guillaume de Pury established Yering, St Huberts and Yeringberg by 1863. In 1875 St Huberts produced over half a million bottles a year, and Yering Station won a Grand Prix at the 1889 Paris Exposition.

Phylloxera reached Victoria in 1877, a property crash followed in 1891, and federation in 1901 brought competition from other states. The guide says production stopped in 1921 and that by 1937 the vineyards had become pasture; Wine Yarra Valley places the end in the 1930s depression. Reg Egan of Wantirna Estate replanted in 1963, and St Huberts and Yeringberg were replanted in the 1960s. The GI was registered on 30 October 1996.

Wine Australia's guide divides the valley into the Lower and Upper Yarra, between the Great Dividing Range to the north and the Dandenong Ranges to the south, with the Yarra River running through it. Vineyard hillsides range from gentle to very steep, and altitude and aspect create very different mesoclimates; even the warmest sites are relatively cool, and frost is rare except on the valley floor. The climate moves between Mediterranean and continental, with limited maritime influence. Wine Australia gives 559 mm of growing-season rain and a mean January temperature of 18.9 °C (19.4 °C at Healesville).

Two soil types dominate. On the northern side, the traditional vineyard area, grey to grey-brown loamy sands to clay loams lie over rocky red-brown clay, derived from Great Dividing Range sandstone; they are acidic, low in fertility and well drained. On the southern side are younger, deep, fertile red volcanic soils, as at Seville and Hoddles Creek.

Wine Australia describes Yarra Valley Pinot Noir as light to medium-bodied with plum, strawberry and cherry, and Chardonnay with white peach, melon and fig; fruit of both from the coolest sites goes into sparkling wine. Cabernet Sauvignon, often blended with a little Cabernet Franc and Merlot, ranges from medium to full-bodied with silky tannins to aromatic and herbal. Shiraz depends on site selection; it is often co-fermented with a small share of Viognier, and some producers label it Syrah. The guide links the range of altitude to a long, slow ripening period and to a wider choice of varieties than the region's coolness alone would suggest.

The Yarra Valley is one of five regions of the Port Phillip zone, with Geelong, Macedon Ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Sunbury. It has no registered subregions; the Lower and Upper Yarra are descriptive divisions. Its boundary is the register's textual description, drawn on the 1981 county, parish and municipal map of south-western Victoria. The main varieties are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, and a wine labelled Yarra Valley needs at least 85% of its grapes from inside the boundary.