Our Story

We established Camerons Estate in Darley in 1996 on an escarpment above Bacchus Marsh, about 50km north-west of Melbourne. It lies nestled on the edge of the Wombat State Forest and is overlooked by the beautiful, rolling hills of the Lerderderg Gorge.

The first vineyard we planted at Camerons Estate was our “Old Shiraz” in ‘96, followed by our Chardonnay in ‘97, more Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon in ‘98, and our back vineyard (which presently consists of mostly shiraz) in ‘99. Our first vintage was in 2000 –  a small barrel of a mix of our shiraz and cab sav, which we refer to as our “Darley Blend”. 

Other than rainfall, our local climate is very reliable. We have plenty of cloud free days in February giving us all the UV we need to ripen our grapes, with our nights cooling enough to maintain the desired acidity. However, our mostly gravel and yellow clay soils are always hungry for water, so our generally meagre rainfall means we can only crop at very low yields. 

Our estate grown grapes are hand picked with the help of family and friends. Our chardonnay is chilled over night after picking and basket pressed. It is then fermented in a combination of French oak barrels and stainless-steel drums before spending time in French oak. Our reds are fermented in 2000 litre open top stainless-steel tanks. They are then basket pressed in oak barriques and puncheons.

Just like everything else, we bottle and label our wine by hand. We use bottling equipment handed down to us from Lou’s father, Jim Howarth. Jim and his family grew grapes and made wine in the Clare Valley for many years. Much of what we know about growing grapes and making wine we learned from Jim.

We are lifelong lovers of wine and are inspired by the great wines from Australia and overseas. Every year we learn a little more about our site and climate – and become a little braver in the winery. One day we hope to really pull it all together and match some of the wines that have inspired us. While we don’t presently operate a cellar door, and unfortunately don’t have any short term plans to open one, if you would like to reach out we would still love for you to get in touch with us via our contact page, or by emailing us at info@cameronsestate.com.au. We also encourage you to sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with news and any special offers available.

Every bottle of Camerons Estate contains three generations of a love of wine. We hope you enjoy drinking our wines as much as we do making them.

Cheers to you and yours,

– Lou & Martin Webb