We began Bird in Hand in 1997 with the ambitious goal of making wines that rank among the world’s finest. Inside of a generation, with four tiers of wines for every occasion, we have achieved our objective, more or less.
Along the way, we’ve learned so much about everything else we love. We’ve discovered great art, and commissioned some of our own. We’ve collaborated with some of our favorite fashion designers, created a line of luxury accessories, home goods and tabletop treasures. We run a farm-to-table restaurant and sipping cellar and host some of Australia’s best loved musicians for outdoor concerts at our farm. We also host parties as far away as The Hamptons. Every day, we meet incredible people, who we continue to bring into our world as friends and collaborators. To us, wine is a vehicle, a connector. It opens up other worlds.
We’ve found that life is good, but that wine makes it even better. And vice versa. It’s why we wake up every day and breathe the same air as our vines. We walk the fields and soak up the abundant South Australian sun. We stoop down and scoop up the soil of the Adelaide Hills and let it sift through our fingers, just to experience its distinctive texture one more time. There is nothing like it on earth.
Here, from the land we love, we create cool-climate wines with a global reach, each its own special tribute to pleasure. We like to think we’re giving the world a taste of the good life. The world seems to agree and reward us well.
Bird in Hand began in earnest in 1997 when our founder, Andrew Nugent, and his father Michael Nugent, happened upon a run-down dairy farm in the emerging Adelaide Hills wine region of south Australia. The site of a gold mine in the late 1800s, its 80 fertile acres enjoyed the ideal growing conditions for stellar cool-climate wines. The seaside influence of the Gulf of St. Vincent, the cloud-trapping rise of the Mount Lofty Ranges and plenty of Australian sun all combined to create a special diurnal temperature shift that our grapes love.
An agricultural college graduate and vineyard apprentice who grew up next to Penfolds at Magill and spent his formative years in McLaren Vale, Andrew wanted winemaking to be his life’s work, and he had a strong feeling this was the place to do it. He was correct.
Today, we make four tiers of wines. Shiraz, of course, but also pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc, and Italian varietals like nero d’avola, montepulciano, and arneis.
For more information visit birdinhand.com.au