Singing a different tune

A mid-life convert to grape growing and winemaking, Dudley brought a breath of fresh air to McLaren Vale when he bought a vineyard and launched his label, Inkwell Wines, in 2003. His now wife Irina, joined him several years later.

Their MO is limited-release, low-intervention wines made from grapes grown in their organic vineyard. They also have a cellar door made from shipping containers – which Dudley dreamed up using Lego blocks – and boutique accommodation. They intentionally keep production small and hands-on.

“Neither of us wants to become, like, the chief of accounts payable, and we’re both pretty much involved in everything,” says Dudley.

That’s an understatement. Dudley also helped create the successful Sustainable Australia Winegrowing program (he met Irina when he interviewed her to develop and run it), created a line of products for an agricultural consulting and products business, and once did a TEDx Talk on wine growing and water usage. It’s safe to say sustainability is a major focus.

Back at Inkwell – serendipitously located on McLaren Vale’s California Road – Dudley and Irina focus a lot of their attention on the vineyard so they can be more hands-off in the winery.

“As a consumer I got really interested in wines that are made with wild yeast and minimal intervention wines,” says Dudley. “I always appreciated the sense of place that those wines seemed to impart compared to a lot of other wines.”

A huge music fan, Dudley names many of his wines after songs and albums, like the Blonde on Blonde Viognier and Inkwell’s experimental range, Dub Style.

“We call it Dub Style because Dub music is all about taking something that’s familiar and changing it into something that’s new and suddenly unfamiliar,” he says.

“In the context of the way we make and grow wine, we’re undoubtedly rogue, but we think that's what you need to do to make refined wine, not simple wine.”

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