Michael Fragos is chief winemaker and general manager at McLaren Vale winery Chapel Hill, which this year celebrated its 50th vintage.
Michael has been with the company for the last 21 of those vintages. So, in this special episode of Drinks Adventures – produced in partnership with Chapel Hill – he shares his insights on the winery’s evolution and the attention to detail that defines its winemaking process.
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This meticulous approach has this year inspired the release of a new flagship wine, The Devil Shiraz 2020, which plays on the saying, ‘the devil’s in the detail’.
We’ll explore that new release in this interview with Michael, along with some of the experiments and tweaks he’s made in the winery over the last couple of decades to take the Chapel Hill wines to even greater heights.
Chapel Hill founder Tom Nelson released the winery’s first wines in 1975, having stumbled upon
the derelict ironstone chapel and surrounding grazing paddocks in 1971.
Of note in Chapel Hill’s history was the engagement of winemaker Pam Dunsford, a pioneer in Australian
winemaking.
Under Pam’s stewardship, Chapel Hill became one of Australia’s most respected names in wine, renowned for its classic and approachable wine styles.
Michael Fragos joined the team at Chapel Hill as Chief Winemaker in 2003. Fragos immediately
focused on implementing sustainable practices in the vineyard and winery, aiming to make wines
‘of purity and balance’ that express the McLaren Vale region and the vineyard sites they come
from.
Sustainability practices enacted in the vineyards include cover cropping, composting (using
grape marc) and mulching while controlling vine vigour through traditional canopy management
techniques.
Chapel Hill also keeps its footprint in the vineyard to a minimum by reducing how often
machinery is taken through the vines.
“A major focus for the team over the last 10 years has been on improving our vineyards’ soils and,
more specifically, the soils and vines in our House Block. It’s a tiny block, just 0.8 hectares, but it
has always had huge potential. The geology of the block is a very humbling 550 million years old,”
Fragos said.
“The excellent work of Bryn Richards, our Senior Winemaker, and Rachel Steer, our Senior
Viticulturist, has resulted in what is now a wonderfully even and healthy block. Specifically, age-old
techniques we’ve implemented have brought new life to our old vines.”
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