Mac Forbes
THE INTREPID PIONEER
Mac Forbes is a Yarra Valley winemaker who threw out the rulebook and wrote his own. He’s still making it up as he goes – and the results are exciting.
Born and raised in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, Mac Forbes has become one of the region’s greatest champions. He’s shone a spotlight on some of Yarra Valley’s lesser known subregions and shaped the conversation about Australia’s terroir, all while making thrilling cool-climate wines.
TWISTS AND TURNS
Mac grew up in the Yarra Valley, with parents who picked grapes for Mount Mary winery. But it wasn’t until he left Australia’s shores for Europe that his passion for wine ignited. He was 18 and, on the move, when he ran out of travel money and found himself in the south of France during harvest. Mac easily found work helping in the vineyard and winery. And despite the long hours and hard, physical work – not to mention electrocuting himself a couple of times – Mac fell for the excitement and camaraderie of harvest time and winemaking.
Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of us. When Mac returned home from Europe, he started a degree in Science and Commerce but felt uninspired and a bit lost. With gentle prodding from his parents, he switched to winemaking – a degree that became a springboard to a world of intrigue. His qualification in hand, Mac set off again, gaining experience in winemaking, marketing and teaching and working with respected names in Australia and overseas. He educated European distributors on Australian wines, consulted to Austrian winemakers and made wine in the UK.
Mac Forbes is a Yarra Valley winemaker who threw out the rulebook and wrote his own. He’s still making it up as he goes – and the results are exciting.
During his travels through Europe, Mac also encountered uncertainty about Australia as a wine country. People didn’t know much about its terroir. They questioned whether it was suited to making premium wines.
These conversations made Mac curious. He realised how little he understood about his own land. He returned to Australia in 2004 with a mission: to better understand Australia’s climate and soils and make authentic wine that truly reflected our region.
‘We’ve been trying to find cooler sites, revisiting what we’ve previously understood good viticulture to be. As a result, the Yarra Valley is one hundred times more exciting for me than it was 12 years ago.’ - Mac Forbes
THE HUNT FOR NEW TERROIR
Mac moved back to the Yarra Valley in search of new land and vineyard sites that were cool enough to make the wines he wanted. An intrepid explorer veering off the beaten path. Under his EB (experimental batch) label, Mac got creative, striving to capture regional nuances in the bottle, the difference between this row of vines and that one. These experiments helped him to better understand the Yarra Valley’s sub regions and soils. Sometimes they failed. And sometimes they resulted in thrilling, one-of-a-kind wines.
Since Mac launched his own winery in 2004, he’s started a whole new conversation about Australian terroir and shone a spotlight on the Yarra Valley’s lesser known sub regions. It’s a journey that’s helping to redefine Yarra Valley wine and reshape the world’s understanding of what Australian wine can be.
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