Ashley Hills wine going hand in hand with wool

The picturesque property is home to vineyards, a lamb and wool venture, a cellar door which adjoins an operational shearing shed, and also hosts mountain biking events.

When the old shearing shed at Ashley Hills Estate was bulldozed four years ago, owner Paul Giles recognised the chance to add a cellar door to the new shed to create a unique experience.

Paul said the cellar door offered visitors an opportunity to sample wines, while getting a firsthand look at Australian farming culture.

The cellar door and shearing shed combination represents an exciting new venture for the Giles family, which has a rich background in SA agriculture.

Wool is the family’s main enterprise, having sold fleece through Elders for more than 100 years.

“We started on the Yorke Peninsula, then at Clare and my grandfather came here in 1936,” Paul said.

Shearing happens once a year at Ashley Hills, with their most recent clip one of their most successful.

“We’ve just sold our wool and for the first time with the Merinos we hit 1000 cents a kilogram and we also got a good price for the crossbred wool at 735c/kg,” Paul said.

Paul said they run 1000 sheep on 370 hectares and additional lease land, breeding first-cross ewes and selling crossbred lambs, with this year’s offering averaging about $115 a head.

He said they buy 50 to 60 Merino ewes every second year to keep breeder numbers up and buy their Border Leicester rams from the Inverbrackie stud at Finniss.

“We like to get long-bodied rams. You seem to be able to get weight into them quickly with a long body,” Paul said.

The Giles started growing grapes 25 years ago, making a switch from almonds.

“Grapes were going quite well when we started out,” Paul said. 

“We sold to Hardys and Rosemount to begin with.”

Today, the family sells to companies including Hardys, Shingleback, Gemtree and Wirra Wirra (for its Church Block label), with a few friends making wine from his grapes to sell at the cellar door.

Only red varieties are grown on the 32ha dedicated to vines, with shiraz making up 80 per cent, and the remainder filled by cabernet sauvignon and merlot.

Paul said the sheep and wine operations were a natural fit.

“They enhance each other because while we’re working on the sheep, there’s not much to do on the grapes,” he said. “And when we’re working on grapes, there’s not much to do on the sheep.”