Our Story
This video was created prior to the completion of the new off-grid cellar door
Silver Spoon Estate
As featured on C31 Television Program - ‘The Cellar Door’ S01E06
In June 2017, Channel 31 produced a new wine television series, “The Cellar Door”, in partnership with Australian local food and wine producers. Host George Gayler brought viewers first-hand insights into the most amazing vineyards and wineries, exploring the epicurean delights on offer and interviewing winemakers and vineyard owners. Watch George’s visit to our Estate where she found out all there is to know about our wines and us:
Meet Tracie Young – GM, Sales & Marketing
Who Discusses:
The inception of the winery
The Heathcote estate area
History of the land and paying respect to Aboriginal Sacred Sites
The Vineyards name and the Silver Spoon fault line that traverses the property.
Meet Peter Young – CEO & Wine Maker
Who Discusses:
What it means to be an estate, based on a French concept.
Operating a solar powered winery.
Introduction to our new vintages/blends/labels.
A Spanish inspired blend, humbly titled the GST – Death and Taxes.
Peter Young’s life as a Geologist and his perspective of the land and soils which make up the beautiful Silver Spoon Estate wines.
Watch the full episode S01E06, featuring two Heathcote wineries: Silver Spoon Estate and Vinea Marson
Our History
Silver Spoon Estate is a family owned and operated boutique cellar door / winery and vineyards focusing on the production of premium quality wines. Our Estate is named after the now abandoned Silver Spoon Mine, situated on the eastern hillside.
The Property
The vineyards of Silver Spoon Estate commenced planting in 1999, comprising five clones of Shiraz vines, Viognier, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Tempranillo grape varietals on the western hillside and consisted of 350 acres on two titles of land. There are 51 acres of vineyards sited on the east and west slopes of the Mount Camel range, which forms the spine of the region.
The Estate was subdivided in 2008 when Peter and Tracie Young acquired only 100 acres of the Estate on the east side of the range, including one acre of Shiraz grapes planted on the top of the hill in 1999. A new five-acre vineyard was planted to Shiraz and Viognier in 2009 and a winery was constructed in 2010. The remaining 150 acres on the west side was purchased in 2013 to merge these two properties once again. This expansion of the Silver Spoon Estate vineyards has enabled us to create new wines and produce a vast range of wines over recent years.
The Cellar Door was opened in 2015 with an ornamental vineyard planted and a special wine garden created in 2017 for our customers to enjoy our beautiful scenic views of the area and farmyard friends, while enjoying our wine and food options available. A new contemporary Cellar Door and Bistro, together with a Barrel Room and Winery extension were completed in October 2021.
This property has a colourful history with many stories from the gold rush era and 1970’s mining of the Mt Camel ranges. In its earlier years the land was inhabited by aboriginal people. There are several sacred sites on the property, including an old axe quarry which was used to construct tools and weapons based on the Cambrian greenstones, together with beautiful box gum trees dating back over 200 years ago, along with sacred ring and scar trees too.
With the settling of European people during the 19th century, the area became part of the gold rush. The Silver Spoon mining company was active in the early 1970s although was unsuccessful in commercial discovery.
Where does the name Silver Spoon Estate come from?
With Peter being a geologist, we researched the soils of Heathcote prior to purchasing the land in 2008. Upon looking at a geology map, we identified that there was a Silver Spoon fault line running through the property – which the locals call the Mount Camel Ranges.
This Silver Spoon fault line runs through Heathcote up some 80km north to Rochester. There is also a Silver Spoon Mine near the cellar door which was mined in the 1970’s. After extensive research amongst family, friends and work colleagues, the name Silver Spoon Estate was born respecting the land, its heritage and a brand name that was identified with food.
Our People
Peter and Tracie Young
Tracie and Peter were married in 2001, at the time creating a blended family with 5 teenagers ranging from 7 to 18 years and two dogs in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. As the children grew up and left home, Tracie and Peter started to talk about life in retirement.
Peter became familiar with vineyards when working as a geologist in the 1970’s in the Hunter Valley and suggested purchasing a small block of land not far from Melbourne to create a lifestyle property where we could eventually live, grow some grapes and make wine.
In 2008 they purchased 100 acres on the east side at Silver Spoon Estate and went to work planting vines and constructing a winery.
In 2012 Peter completed the Master of Wine Technology and Viticulture course at Melbourne University, and before long the hobby became a business, putting their collective marketing and business experience to work building the Silver Spoon Estate brand. In 2013 they acquired the adjoining vineyards on the west side of the Mount Camel range and in 2017 a house was constructed on the property.
As Peter transitioned into a full-time winemaker, Tracie embraced what it meant to own a winery; responsible for day-to-day operations of the business, vineyard management, assisting in the winery and setting up the cellar door. With a business background working alongside many CEO’s, MD’s and Board of Directors and acquired sales and marketing expertise over 35+ years, Tracie is delighted to bring an exceptional customer service journey to all patrons who visit us.
Today Peter runs the vineyard and winery and Tracie is responsible for the marketing, social media, customer sales and cellar door. The business has come a long way from its early beginnings. It’s hard work and long hours, but life is rewarding, fun, interesting, and very social.
It’s a pleasure talking all things wine with our patrons, family and friends who come to our Estate, and sharing a glass or two. We hope to see you soon!
Our Vineyards
We specialise in growing Rhone Valley and Spanish grape varieties on the Estate. Shiraz is the predominate variety, forming 80% of plantings. The remainder is planted to Viognier, Grenache, Mourvedre and Tempranillo.
There are 51 acres (22 hectares) of vines, with plantings segregated into 4 vineyards situated on the east and west sides of the Mount Camel range. Vine plantings date back to the year 1999 and have developed without irrigation. The hilltop vineyard is situated at 325 metres altitude, one of the highest vineyards in the region. Only 5 acres of vines on the Eastern hillside are visible from our Cellar door, with views of our southern neighbours. Our remaining vineyards behind the Cellar Door over the hill.
The soils of the Mount Camel range are famous for their grape-growing capacity. They are deep, red and rocky, and have an excellent ability to store and hold moisture and encourage deep root penetration and are derived from rocks produced by ancient undersea volcanoes that were active during the Cambrian era over 500 million years ago. Over millions of years the Cambrian strata were folded and uplifted to form the Mount Camel range. The Silver Spoon fault line, which runs through the property and delineates the range and is the basis for the name Silver Spoon Estate.
In 2019 a kangaroo fence of some 3km long was erected around our Dowds Lane Vineyard to enable us to preserve what grapes we produce without the kangaroos eating the labour of our love a few weeks or even days before we harvest. This is also a humane way for us to ensure that the kangaroos stay safe and move on into their natural forest land in the surrounding areas.
Our neighbour’s sheep roam the Estate 12 months of the year with rotational movement to preserve the land and allow natural seeds to germinate and flower to stop soil erosion. The sheep are also moved into the large vineyard (with dam water) in Winter and removed at bud burst (mid-September) each year to cut down chemical intervention of the crops and allow natural fertilisation to occur with some 750 kilos per sheep of manure helping to generate the soil and put nitrogen back into the vines.
Our Off-Grid Estate
Off-Grid Living / Working / Enjoying
The winery, cellar door and our home on the Estate all operate completely off-grid, with 64 rooftop solar panels generating up to 18kW power during the daylight hours while charging the 33kWh lithium ion battery storage system. An auto-start generator is activated on the rare occasions that the batteries are discharged to less than 30% capacity, with a weekly maintenance start up occurring to ensure the generator will turn on when required to do so.
The solar system produces enough solar energy to run the de-stemmer, pumps, basket press, high pressure water hose and other winery equipment during vintage (February to April), together with fridges, lighting, two evaporative cooling units and other devices at the Cellar Door throughout the year.
The house, built in 2017, was the first Metricon home built completely off-grid and runs like everyone else’s home with all mod-cons. However, research was required prior to building to ensure the installation of all low energy use appliances and cooling systems, including low water usage were purchased prior to construction.
The storage of water in large tanks onsite enables us to not be connected to any outside services and council amenities. We have a septic system on the property, whilst gas bottles are used to provide gas cooking and instant hot water to the home and Cellar Door facilities.
Our Sustainability
Managing sustainability in the vineyard and winery
Our aim is to support natural process in viticulture and winemaking that produce wines of unique flavour and high quality.
In order to produce wines of intense flavour and varietal character, our vineyards are non-irrigated. We rely on natural rainfall, the moisture holding capacity of the soil, and the ability of grapevine roots to penetrate deep into the soil, to sustain the vines during the dry summer. The vines are pruned to support low yields of around 1 tonne to the acre, in order to improve grape quality and flavour.
We encourage a living vineyard with ants, worms, ladybirds and spiders that all play a part in keeping the vineyard fauna in balance, thus preventing hostile pests and diseases from taking control, and reducing the need for chemical sprays. Growth of grasses and annual weeds during the winter support rejuvenation of the soil. Sheep grazing prior in early Spring allows us to control the weeds and generate a source of organic carbon. During the growing season the vineyard mid-rows are mowed to return organic matter back to the soil and reduce competition with the vines.
In 2020, 13 rows of shiraz on the east side block were mulched with white river gravel. The motivation is to improve water retention, reduce weed competition, moderate summer soil temperature. We look forward to seeing the results of this trial.
Our philosophy in the winery is to adopt traditional French wine making techniques but we are not afraid to adopt new techniques that will improve wine quality. In most instances the vines are hand-picked. Red wines are fermented in small, open fermenters with daily plunging and pressed using a basket press. Whole bunch techniques are principally used for grenache and rosé and may be partially incorporated into processing for the other varieties. Red wines are generally aged for 18 months in French oak, with the proportion of new oak varying based on the variety and the style.
