The Byrne's and the Glover's are the type of Friends that have become family so when we needed wine for this years Mother's Day hampers and the Byrnes Farm Winery had just opened it's doors in Orange, we knew what to do.
In 1995, Jeff Byrne a Canadian from Nova Scotia made the decision to take a year off school and travel to the Gold Coast, Australia with some buddies. One evening Jeff and his mates were leaving Broadbeach for Surfers Paradise and shared a maxi taxi with a group of girls, an important time in history for Byrne Farm as one of the girls, Bridgette is now Jeff’s wife!
After getting married in 2000, Jeff & Bridgette made the move to the Hunter Valley where Jeff started his career in winemaking, working for the newly built Tower Estate owned by a consortium led by the wine legend Len Evans. During his 8 years at Tower, Jeff completed his Wine Science degree at Charles Sturt university in Wagga Wagga and with Bridgette had three daughters Caitlin, Lauren and Bree.
In 2008 Jeff joined the Agnew Wines family where he became the Chief Winemaker overseeing the production of Audrey Wilkinson, Poole’s Rock and Cockfighert’s Ghost wines for 11 years. Over this time, Jeff had the opportunity to do two Vintages in Burgundy, both at Domaine D’Eugenie, which solidified his love affair with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. He was a scholar at the 2009 Len Evans Tutorial and has become a leading judge in the Australian wine show system, currently the Chair of the NSW Small Winemakers Show.
In 2019 Jeff and Bridgette made the decision to make a ’tree-change’ leaving their Newcastle beach suburb of Stockton and good mates the Glover's for Orange NSW, a cool climate area Jeff had long admired after many years of purchasing fruit and making wines from the region and which also has a strong resemblance to Nova Scotia.
Their farm is located in Nashdale, a 10 minute drive out of Orange, on the Northern slope of Mt Canobolas, an extinct volcano with rich chocolate/red ferrosol soils at approximately 900m altitude.
Our first Byrne Farm vineyard block was planted in 2020 with plenty of help from friends and family, including the Sam & Simon
The block is approximately1.5 hectares of Pinot Noir with a mixture of clones (777, 115, Abel, 667 and 114) at 2.5m row spacings with vines planted 1.2m apart.
If you fancy trying these gorgeous wines you need to get your mum a hamper this mother's day or pop out to Orange for a visit and mention you are a Pork Ewe lover.