Handcrafted Mudgee wines
Making wine, treading lightly.
Heslop Wines is a boutique family vineyard and winery in the heart of the Mudgee region. Our aim is to ‘tread lightly’, producing small batches of handcrafted premium wine with grapes from our vineyard and select local growers.
This sustainable approach involves:
Hand picking and pruning in the vineyard
Strategic irrigation to conserve water and maintain vine health
Minimal intervention winemaking methods such as gentle crushing, hand plunging, and basket pressing
Solar power and sustainable building materials
Where to find our wines
Our wines are available in the cellar door, our online shop, or at select retailers in Mudgee. We’re currently working on a straw bale cellar door and warehouse. While it’s under construction you can try all our wines at The Cottage Tasting Room.
Meet the Heslops.
Bob.
Bob began his winemaking career in McLaren Vale, SA while studying oenology at CSU Wagga Wagga. He then returned to NSW where he completed a vintage in the Hunter Valley, before settling in Mudgee and planting his own vineyard. After several years making wine for Mansfield Wines while teaching science, Bob established Heslop Wines in 2011.
Julie.
Julie was born and raised in Mudgee and was a primary school teacher in the area for many years. These days you’ll find her looking after customers in the tasting room. When she’s not pouring wine she’s busy managing the business behind the scenes. Julie is also involved in the Mudgee Wine and Grape Growers Association as Chief Steward for the Mudgee Wine Show.
Liam.
Liam studied Oenology at the University of Adelaide and graduated in 2005. As well as working at several wineries in Mudgee, Liam has also completed vintages in Sonoma County in California where he developed his passion for zinfandel. He also worked a vintage in Piedmonte in Italy, and went on a winemaking study trip to Pfaltz, Germany.
Our Story.
In the mid-1980s the Heslop family returned to Mudgee with the dream of creating a vineyard and boutique winery. They found a piece of premium land and set about planting varieties like Touriga Nacional, Tinta Cao, and Zinfandel.
Once the vineyard was established, Bob produced wine for another local winery. Finally in 2011 he made the first vintage of Heslop Wines, which turned out to be our award winning Touriga Nacional.
Meanwhile Liam created Heslop’s Mr Rascal in 2009 with a small batch of zinfandel he ‘borrowed’ from the vineyard. At the time he was still learning the ropes and experimenting as a winemaker. It was a happy day in 2017 when both he and Heslop’s Mr. Rascal took the plunge and joined the family business.
We make small batches of hand crafted, premium wines.
All our wines are produced by hand, on site, by us - even the bottling and the labeling. Keeping things small means we have full control over the process, so we can make the wine how we (and our customers) want. It allows us to be agile and innovative so we can respond to market and vineyard conditions. We also like to try new things!
Traditional blends, innovative styles and family favourites.
Over the past 35 years we’ve developed a bit of a name for alternate varieties like the Touriga Nacional, Zinfandel and Tinta Cao. We also produce traditional styles that Mudgee is known for, like chardonnay, shiraz, cabernet, merlot and fortifieds. A more recent addition to the line-up is the whole bunch shiraz, a lively, fruity red that’s delightfully unexpected. During a wet year we might even make a botrytis desert wine.
Our vineyard soil.
Our vineyard soils are chocolate clay loam topsoil over well drained clay subsoils. The soil is derived from shale below, which has quartz veins leading to a scattering of quartz throughout the vineyard.
