About Us

We love the simple things; making great wine and wood-fired pizzas.

What started out as one couple’s dream to grow and sell grapes has turned into an inter-generational family business. Four Winds Vineyard now grows grapes, makes wine and has a cellar door on site, so that you can come and sit amongst the vines and enjoy our wines with our delicious wood-fired pizzas.

In 2019 the business expanded to include a new vineyard and winery; Kyeema Estate. This is one of the area’s most distinguished vineyards and is within an easy, 20 minute tractor drive of Four Winds Vineyard.

Kyeema Estate gives Four Winds Vineyard access to some new varieties such as Tempranillo, Chardonnay and Viognier but it also provides us with some exceptional quality fruit such as an old Penfolds clone of Shiraz and a reserve Merlot.

The Four Winds Vineyard timeline

• 1998 We planted the vineyard and started to sell grapes under contract to BRL Hardy – making a small amount of wine under the Four Winds Vineyard label.
• 2006 BRL Hardy moved out of the Canberra District and we increased the  volume of wine we were making under the Four Winds Vineyard label
• 2010 To increase the visibility of Canberra District wines in independent retailers, we established The Canberra Wine Collective. This initiative brought together five neighboring wineries, collaborating to create branded point-of-sale stands in over 20 retailers.
• 2011 We received a federal government grant of $110,000 to build a cellar door
• 2013 The cellar door was completed
• 2013 Four Winds Vineyard received the Visitor Experience Award at the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards
• 2014 We ran a successful crowd funding campaign raising $23,000 to extend the winery
• The 2014 Riesling was awarded a gold medal and was one of the top three Rieslings at the Melbourne Wine Awards. Taylor’s Wines (97 points) and our Riesling was equal with Peter Lehmann Wines with 96 points
• 2014 Four Winds Vineyard received the Visitor Experience Award at the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards
• 2015 With a bumper crop in 2015 we teamed up with two neighbours and turned 4-tonnes of our spare Shiraz grapes into wine and raised over $40,000 for refugees living in Canberra. ‘The Four Tonne Project’.
• 2015 Four Winds Vineyard received the Visitor Experience Award at the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards – the third year in a row!
• 2016 We completed a large, undercover seating area; the hay-shed, to the south of the cellar door allowing us to significantly extend our seating space.
• 2016 With some timber left over from a project and the materials from an old wooden hay-shed we built the chapel
• 2016 We re-designed our labels and won three international design awards; gold at the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, Overall Supreme Champion at the Drinks International Wine Design Challenge and Supreme Champion at London’s 2017 Harpers Design Awards.
• 2017 CEO, Sarah Collingwood, was selected to be a part of the Wine Australia’s Future Leaders program.
• 2017 CEO, Sarah Collingwood, named Australian Women in Wine Owner/Operator of the year
• 2018 We made our first Sparkling Riesling
• 2019 Four Winds Vineyard was named the Yass Valley Business Chamber excellence in business winner.
• 2019 Kyeema Estate joined the Four Winds Vineyard Group and we released the first Kyeema wines under the Four Winds Vineyard label
• 2020 The bushfires caused smoke taint throughout the vineyard and we were not able to harvest any grapes in 2020 for wine.
• 2020 We teamed up with The Canberra Distillery and released a Riesling gin.
• 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions saw us operating with take-away wine and pizza before being able to return to almost normal trading
• 2022 We make our first Sparkling Rosé.
• 2022 We team up with five neighbours along Murrumbateman Road to release the ‘Quick fix for flooding’ six pack to let everyone know that the businesses are open despite the partial closure of Murrumbateman Road due to rain.
• 2023 Following the success of our Riesling Gin in 2020 we teamed up with Wine Ingenuity to create our hand-crafted, single batch, Shiraz Rosé Gin.
• 2023 Murrumbateman Road reopens after months of closure and allows for participation in the inaugural StompFest.
• 2023 At the Australian Single Vineyard Wine Show in Cowra our 2022 Shiraz was awarded Top Gold along with Trophy for Best Shiraz & Trophy for Best Dry Table Red. To top the evening off, John Collingwood was presented with the Best Viticulturalist Trophy.
• 2023 Our 2022 Hard Graft Shiraz was recognised at the Canberra & Region Wine Show with the 2023 Dr Edgar Riek OAM Trophy for Best Canberra District Shiraz. It also was awarded Gold medals at the 2023 NSW Small Winemaker’s Wine Show & by The Real Review.
• 2024 Four Winds Vineyard named a 5 Star Winery by Halliday Wine Companion & awarded a Top Winery ranking by The Real Review.
• 2024 Partnered with our neighbours; Abode Hotels and Murrumbateman Chocolate Co to increase our offering to wine club members.
• Our 2023 Shiraz was awarded The Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy For Best Young Red Wine at the 2024 Melbourne Royal Wine Awards. In addition to this, the wine was awarded The Trevor Mast Trophy for Best Shiraz, The Douglas Seabrook Single Vineyard Trophy and Best New South Wales (incl. ACT) Shiraz trophy. Our owner and vineyard manager John Collingwood was awarded the Kym Ludvigsen Trophy for Viticultural Excellence.

The ‘Four Winds’ Story

The Four Winds Story began with a miner and his wife who lived on the property in a slab-hut. Her name was Scheherazade, after the story telling character in The Arabian Nights. Her favourite story described a magic carpet being borne by the four winds of good fortune. She named this small farm in Murrumbateman ‘Four Winds’ in the hope it would carry their good fortunes.

We are located to the north of Canberra just east of Murrumbateman, on the corner of Murrumbateman Road and Patemans Lane. We planted our thirty-three acre vineyard in 1998 and 1999 with five varieties; Shiraz, Riesling, Cabernet, Merlot and Sangiovese.

You can come and visit us and see what we are all about.  Alternatively; if a visit isn’t possible, sign up to our newsletter to get all the latest updates from the team.  The newsletter will also tell you about our events; winemaker dinners, blending seminars, harvest festival etc.

We ship our wine Australia-wide and we are always ready to help.  Email us at hello@fourwindsvineyard.com.au.