De Bortoli Wines: История австралийской винодельческой династии.

Australian wine company

De Bortoli Wines is a wine producing private company based in Australia. Its range of wines includes the sweet white Noble One.

The winemaking team is overseen by third generation winemaker Darren De Bortoli and his brother in law Steve Webber. In the early 1980s, Darren De Bortoli created the Noble One Botrytis Semillon. Steve Webber established the company's premium Yarra Valley winery in the early 1990s and is also responsible for overseeing the company's King Valley vineyards and Hunter Valley winery and vineyards. The company quotes its philosophy as, "great wine begins in the vineyard", and that the winemaker should use minimal handling and interference in the winemaking process. They also state that wine should have a sense of regionality and be an expression of the soil in which it is grown.

During Darren De Bortoli's years at Roseworthy Agricultural College, Australia's premier winemaking institute, a lot of development work was being done on Botrytis wine styles. While there, De Bortoli decided to make a botrytis affected wine of his own. At that time (1982) there was a surplus of Semillon grapes, a thin skinned, tight bunched varietal particularly susceptible to extensive, uniform botrytis infection. The resulting wine went on to win numerous awards including Best Botrytis Wine at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 1984.

De Bortoli Wines was established in 1928 by Vittorio & Giuseppina De Bortoli and rapidly expanded under the direction of their son, Deen De Bortoli. The family history is documented in a book called Celebrazione! launched in 2003 to celebrate De Bortoli Wines' 75th Anniversary. Deen De Bortoli (born 1936) was the chairman of De Bortoli Wines. He was born in 1936, and at age 15 he left school to help Vittorio and Giuseppina, his parents run the family business. He married Emeri De Bortoli in 1958, and lived in Bilbul, New South Wales, his whole life. They had four children who all work for the company today. Deen also featured in the 2002 episode of the ABC's Dynasties television series titled The De Bortolis of Griffith. He was also featured in the 2002 episode of the ABC's Dynasties television series titled "The De Bortolis of Griffith" which tracked the growth over three generations of the family business from Italian immigrants into one of Australia's largest family wine companies. Darren's sister Leanne manages the Yarra and King Valley wineries with her husband Stephen Webber. Webber is also the Chief Winemaker, for the Yarra Valley Winery of the De Bortoli family business, established in 1928. He was awarded 'Winemaker of the Year by Gourmet Traveller WINE' in 2007. In 2018 a social media scandal surrounding Darren De Bortoli's personal postings became international news. The postings were described as "sexist" and "inappropriate."