Using regenerative agriculture practices, the team behind Hither & Yon winery at McLaren Vale are keeping their carbon footprint low and medal count high.

For a newly crowned Bushing Monarch, Malcom Leask is remarkably laidback and happy to talk about small parcel viticulture and all things dirt.

Together with his brother Richard, Malcolm was jointly bestowed the title at the recent McLaren Vale Wine Awards 2022. Hither & Yon’s 2021 Aglianico garnered the highest points at the awards, making the brothers rulers of the land.

Since 2011, the Hither & Yon team have been applying regenerative agriculture practices to their vineyards in McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills.

Malcolm says it’s a relatively new idea for viticulture in Australia.

“People may be used to biodynamic, organic and, most recently, sustainable practices, but regenerative is a different mindset,” he says. “And for us, it’s a very much a daily mindset.

“It’s about a whole ecosystem – in terms of what we’re doing on land, with a focus on soil and people health every day. From a soil perspective, regenerative is about building as much water and nutrient holding capacity at deeper, richer levels.

“The overlying credence of regenerative agriculture is around light touch and light footprint. And doing as little as possible for the maximum benefit for the soil.

“It’s viticulture for people who are finely tuned to their particular place. You have to have a very intimate understanding of the geology that you’re growing on, the microclimate that you’re in, and also what you want in the future for your environment.”

Breaking the concept down, Malcolm says “it’s very much older school farming principles, but with modern techniques”.

“If you actually let plants compete and find their own balance [and develop] deeper root zones, they’ll naturally do this better without having to worry about inputs,” he says.

“It becomes very much an experience and a confidence thing.”

As a certified carbon neutral wine brand, Hither & Yon measure their carbon emissions and their carbon capture.

With less than half of the McLaren Vale and Kangarilla vineyards’ total hectares under vine, there is also room for grazing Angus beef (to keep the grass down and add natural fertiliser to increase the microbial and microflora soil diversity) and for planting two thousand trees every year to create natural wildlife corridors and encourage biodiversity.

“It’s not just viticulture monoculture,” he says. “And it’s a better natural balance for the environment where we’re growing the grapes.”

At the moment, they have twenty-two grape varieties planted in the vineyards, including three new ones being added this spring. The varieties are chosen for their ability to grow in our future climate and include ones that are less well known here in Australia.

“What we’re seeing more in our wines is a certain suitability for what we call new-wave varieties. So varieties from traditional winegrowing countries that are arguably better suited to our future environment,” Malcolm says.

“For example, with our recent McLaren Vale Wine Show wins, in 2019 we won with a variety from Sicily called Nero D’Avola, [and] and the one we just won two weeks ago was with a southern Italian variety called Aglianico.

“These are quite famous, noble, proud varieties from the more traditional winegrowing countries that we’re now planting because we think they’re going to be better for the environment in the future.”

According to Malcolm, the benefits of regenerative farming will also be noticeable to the consumer.

“[Regenerative farming] brings an element of place to the wine,” he says.

“It’s not just the fruit character or the varietal character coming through in the wine, it’s actually telling a story of where it comes from. It’s geology, it’s biota – things that surround where the fruit comes from as well.

“We do it in a way that’s very light touch as well. So, our wines taste very much like where they come from. That might be an older world take on wine, but it’s in an Australian context.”

The enormous range of varieties Hither & Yon grows is also indicative of the winery’s place.

“There’s not many places in the world that you can do this,” Malcolm says. “McLaren Vale has this maritime climate that suits a lot of new varieties. [From] a family and people perspective, it makes it really interesting, educational and fun for us.”

For some varietals, like the award-winning Aglianico, the planting is less than 1,000 square metres, the equivalent of two or three suburban house blocks.

“Is it normal? Yeah, it is,” he says of the planting’s size. “Perhaps not in an Australian context where we’ve got a larger parcel approach. But certainly, in the finer estates in Italy, France and Spain, they do quite small parcels of wine.

“We don’t make wines to win wine shows. But perhaps our small parcel and batch approach gives that extra character to or extra interest in the wine that [helps it] stand out a little bit.

“It’s not a forced thing. It’s just very much a natural thing.”

Just like regenerative agriculture.

To enjoy a selection of Hither & Yon’s wine on a regular basis, join their curated wine coterie, Milk & Honey. You’ll receive four bottles every two months plus a subscriber-only invitation to their intimate, annual vineyard event.