Kirsty & Peter Balnaves
HEART OF COONAWARRA
Many wine businesses are run by families, but few are as tight knit as Balnaves of Coonawarra. Despite working together for decades, with impressive results, siblings Kirsty and Peter aren’t slowing down any time soon.
South Australia’s famous Coonawarra wine region wouldn’t be the same without the Balnaves family. Doug and his children, Kirsty and Peter, were all born in the region and today their winery is an integral part of the wine community. Around 30 years on, they’re still working closely together, producing premium wines that set the benchmark in this celebrated region.
Through the generations
In the early 1970s, Doug and his wife Annette planted a vineyard in rich red soil, and in 1990 their daughter Kirsty and son Pete joined the business to help produce the first Balnaves wines. These days, Doug is General Manager, while Kirsty is the Business Manager and Peter runs the vineyard. (Annette sadly passed away in 2018.)
The family produces wines exclusively from the fruit they grow in their vineyard, which lies in the heart of Coonawarra’s terra rossa soil. Their wines have attracted a string of awards, including Andrew Halliday’s 2008 Winery of the Year. Balnaves’ Cabernet Sauvignon is everything that made Coonawarra famous, while their Chardonnay is among the region’s best.
“Our great passion is to do things as well as we possibly can,” says Peter. “And if we haven’t got the skills to do that, we make sure we employ the people with the skills to do it properly.”
That’s exactly what they did with their winemaker, Pete Bissell, a former Qantas Winemaker of the Year who has been with Balnaves for nearly 30 years.
“Wine is a long game,” says Peter. “It’s something that you can’t do quickly, and you need to do well. I learnt from my father, and dad learnt from many older-generation mentors. So, I’m looking forward to passing on some of those skills to our children.”
The Balnaves are heavily involved in the Coonawarra community and have been since their ancestors arrived in the area around 1855. But despite this long history and impressive reputation, Kirsty and Peter aren’t slowing down.
“We’ve made it 30 years but we’re still evolving,” says Kirsty. “We're doing new and different and exciting things. We’re not sitting still. And we’re still getting on well together! That’s pretty amazing when you think how closely we work together every day.”
“Wine is a long game. It's something that you can't do quickly, and you need to do well.” – Peter Balnaves
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