Grace Jiranek is the vineyard manager and winemaker at Eldridge Estate in Red Hill, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, where she works alongside winemaker Steve Flamsteed. Grace has worked across some of Australia’s leading cool-climate wine regions, including roles with Ten Minutes by Tractor and Tapanappa and a couple of stints in Chassagne-Montrachet. At Eldridge, she works across both the vineyard and winery with a particular passion for site-driven pinot noir, chardonnay and gamay, sustainable viticulture and the connection between great farming and great wine – usually with her Australian shepherd, Stobie, not too far away.
Get to know Grace and what she’s pouring right now.
As far as I’m concerned, the defining place to get a drink in Victoria is Harriot. I went recently and sat up at the bar; they have a phenomenal wine list and great salty snacks. Otherwise, on the Peninsula, you’ll usually find me out the front of the Bay Hotel Mornington sipping a pint of stout. Hard to beat it in the sunshine.
When someone hands me a drinks list, I usually hand it to someone else. I love nothing more than being a woo girl for other people’s selections. I find it fascinating to see what people gravitate towards on a wine list, price point, region, varieties. But if the baton is passed to me, I order a Dirty Martini to get the creative juices flowing, give a rogue list of descriptors to the amazing somm and put my full faith in their suggestions. I’ve had most of my defining wine experiences using this method.
The last three delicious Victorian things I drank were…
2024 Salo chardonnay – a great example of textbook Aussie chardonnay. Pithy, concentrated fruit and zippy acid. They disappear quickly in our house. It’s great fruit done really beautifully.
2022 Avani syrah – I visited the cellar door last week and Shashi Singh took us through the wines; this one is iconic for good reason. I rarely reach for syrah but when I do, it’s this one.
Three Bays water – not a wine, but this sparkling water is deliciously spicy and I don’t know what they do to it to make it so good.
The Victorian wine I’m loving most right now is anything from Garagiste. Barney Flanders has such a great range of wines from the region, his chardonnays are right up my alley and each vintage is consistently good. It’s nice to see some aligoté in Mornington too!
The most exciting thing happening in wine on the Mornington Peninsula is an exciting wave of dedicated, small-scale growers. There’s an incredible community down here, very focused on site and sustainable wine growing. It feels like a real movement and some great fresh takes on what Mornington Peninsula means as a style.
There’s no better value on a wine list or in a bottle-shop in Victoria than alternate varieties. If you stray a little from the big dogs on weeknights, there are some great examples being made. I’m biased but particularly gamay; there are some amazing expressions coming from a few regions in Victoria.
My favourite place to buy booze is ideally straight from the producer or cellar door. I love supporting the wineries when I can, plus it’s a great excuse for a wine tour. Otherwise, locally it’s Independent Wine Store in Rye. Angela Strickland has a really thoughtful selection of wines which are ever-changing, and she gives great guidance.
I’d love to see people planting more gamay in Victoria because it just makes sense. Gamay is so reflective of the place it’s grown and being relatively new to Australia, people are still taking risks with the making of it. It’s great to see such a range of styles.
My guilty pleasure in the bar is a Pickleback. No matter how your day or night is going, it can only improve with a Pickleback. After two it may get better, after three it’s probably going to get worse. Deadwood in Dromana does the best ones I’ve found so far.
The best or most important change to the way people drink in Victoria in recent years has been connecting with the stories and people behind the wines. It’s lovely to see people choosing what they drink based on what they align with. I feel like there’s a real shift towards understanding the vineyards and the philosophy of the brand, which can only be good for wine quality in Victoria. It’s also great to see wine shops and retailers popping up around the city, like the Drop Shop, that encourage people to try something new.
For me, the most inspiring people in the Victorian drinks world are the young women in wine. There’s a serious cohort of young guns around Victoria at the moment, from viticulture to winemaking, on a mission to make great wine and make the industry an inviting place for the next generation. There are so many great mentors who have already made some amazing headway and support the group coming through now. I’m keen to see where the industry goes from here.
Find out more about Eldridge Estate’s excellent cool climate wines at eldridge-estate.com.au, and follow along for more via @eldridgeestate.