where it all began.

The McLaren Vale wine region is located 30 km south of Adelaide and lies mainly within two triangular geological basins.

Our vineyards are located across the southerly Willunga Embayment. These vineyards are planted in 4 key soil profiles giving our team incredible diverseness in wine grape characters across the many varieties that are planted.

A large portion of these vineyards are on Ngankipari & South Maslin Sands, which is  part of the Pleistocene & Eocene Formations. These sands are located over moisture-retentive clays, with sporadic ironstone patches. This is the foundation supporting the ‘terrara’ of bush vines, sustaining them in the heat of the summer without any surface irrigation whatsoever.

A majority of the vineyards are located in the slightly higher elevated area of Blewitt Springs, and its cooler climate provides the grapes a longer, less intense maturation period, which gives the fruit extra time to develop more complex flavour ripeness with balanced acidity and flavours. Varieties on these vineyards include Cabernet Franc and Merlot for the ‘Old House’ Reserve Series and the Bush Vine Shiraz & Grenache for the Cellarmaster Wines Series.

The ‘Oakley Road’ Vineyard, situated on Pirramimma Sandstone over orange-brown clay, gives the Shiraz from this vineyard the intensity, spice and liquorice tones synonymous of the Shiraz produced from this region. 

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We have over 170 awarded reasons to be proud of our achievements…

Di Fabio Estate Wines released their first wine in 1995 through Cellarmaster Wines.  The Cellarmaster range has now been expanded to four labels, all exclusive to Cellarmaster mail order customers. Following this success, in 2000 Di Fabio Estate Wines expanded their production to include the ‘Old House’ label, available direct from the Winery.

Winemaker, Goe Di Fabio, has been associated with numerous accolades as Senior Winemaker at Geoff Merrill Wines for 14 years prior to launching DiFabio Estate.  The following ‘Awards history’ is a short list of DiFabio awards received since 1995.