Patrick Sullivan

Patrick Sullivan is a farmer first, winemaker second. He and his lovely partner Megan farm wine in the Strezleki Ranges of the Baw Baw Shire, 90km east of Melbourne in the Gippsland region of the cool-climate southernmost province of Victoria. Since his first eponymous wines began appearing in 2010, Pat started labeling some of the most precious and unique Chardonnay in Australia. It may seem that Patrick Sullivan suddenly emerged as a brilliant and particularly individual winemaker overnight but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Patrick studied, travelled and worked hard in unrecognized roles for years before entering the spotlight.

Sullivan began working vineyards at the age twelve, his interest piqued by an excursion on a school camp to a winery that soon turned into a summer job. His mother would drive Sullivan and his friends to Echuca, a town in northern regional Victoria located on the banks of the Murray River, where they would plant and work amidst the vines. But it wasn’t until after moving to London at the age of 19 to work in some “very refined” wine stores that he decided to return to Adelaide to study at Australia’s most lauded viticultural program.

Today, Pat’s bucolic vineyards are showing a new face for Chardonnay internationally, expressing their unique site through careful hands-on nurture. Farming biodynamically, without irrigation or tillage of any kind, Pat works the vines in concert with our own William Downie, who is to Aussie Pinot Noir as Pat Sullivan is to Chardonnay. At harvest, Pat takes most the Chard and Bill takes most the Pinot. It’s perfect! 

A note on the unique terroir of Bill & Pat’s vineyards: the soils are basalt over sandstone! With big chunks of parent rock still present in the volcanic soils. Moreover, their land is overlain with little creeks, streams, and an aquifer with exceptionally pure water. And adding even greater nuance and biodiversity, the property is surrounded by a buzzing native acacia forest.

After hand harvesting, Pat meticulously sorts his grapes before gently pressing and fermenting his hard-earned fruit with the indigenous yeasts of his fields and cellar, taking every effort to preserve and pedestal their terroir, their vintage, and their year’s work nurturing the vines. We much prefer this to the strong-arm approach, bending the wine into some kind of preconceived notion of style. 

Today, Patrick Sullivan's name is synonymous with Australia's natural wine movement, owing also to his side label with Xavier Goodridge, Jumping Juice. With that said, Pat prefers not to use labeling  'natural', believing that the wine he makes is, put simply, the wine that he grows—no need to obscure it with semantics. Pat rather summarizes his project in terms of feeling and capture: “The wines are inspired by emotion, a moment in time and a sense of place.”