Serengale is a vineyard and boutique winery owned by Gayle and partner Serena Abbinga who is also a trained viticulturalist and handles the commercial side of the business. 

“Our wines are all grown, vinified and bottled on site and, if we get it right in the vineyard, my role is making sure that the wine in barrel is nurtured gently through its journey,” Gayle says.

“I craft low-intervention, low-sulphur wines made with traditional methods and they develop slowly and have great mouthfeel and length. I don’t push our wines to a predetermined release date so sometimes it takes 14 months, sometimes 24 months.

“My motto is: ‘the wine is ready when it is ready’”.

Gayle’s first job was in the laboratory at Lindeman’s at Rutherglen where she became fascinated by the chemistry of winemaking and developed an understanding about the importance of the vineyard in producing excellent wines.

Gayle had worked in the wine industry for more than 20 years and was partnered with Serena who was seeking to return to country Victoria after many years of living and working in Melbourne.  The pair decided to start their own wine venture and spent four years searching for a suitable site.

They eventually founded Serengale in Everton Upper near Beechworth in 1999 with the goal of producing the best grapes for making into premium wines. 

“There was nothing on the property when we purchased it, other than a small house, so it was very exciting to plan and implement the perfect set up for our grape varieties when developing our vineyard…and our first harvest was a huge learning curve but so exciting and fulfilling,” Serena says.

A winery was added in 2015 so Serengale wines could now be vinified, hand crafted and bottled on site.

“Our first labelled bottles of Serengale wine were a point when we could say “this is what we have created” and we are delighted that our wines are well received by both customers and the industry with our Chardonnay and Merlot Cabernet consistently achieving gold in the Halliday Wine Companion,” Gayle says.

Gayle and Serena have been constantly developing and improving their grapegrowing and winemaking techniques for the vineyard since its start.

“We have progressively moved to sustainable viticulture, marrying the ongoing developments in science with organic and traditional practices which we believe gives the best results in producing healthy soils, quality grapes and making superior wines,” Gayle says.

“The hero is not the wine maker but the vineyard together with the region, the site and viticultural practices all playing a major role.

“To be a good winemaker, I believe you need to be hands on in both the vineyard and the winery and it’s crucial that the winemaker understands about place and the season and can express that in the wines that you produce.”

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