Atlas Wines
Clare Valley , South Australia
Brands
Atlas Wines
Winery Overview
Atlas Wines was established in 2007 when Amy Lane and her partner and winemaker, Adam Barton, purchased a 26-acre block of land, a vineyard planted with Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, on the eastern slopes of the Clare Valley. Their vision was pretty simple: to produce great wine from the highest-quality fruit available, not just from the Atlas vineyard but from vineyards with exceptional provenance in the surrounding regions.
In searching out these vineyards, they have come to know intimately the complexity and diversity of the Clare Valley, and how the unique characteristics of different sites produce fruit with unique qualities. It’s these qualities that they have sought to express through the wines that they've made.
As such, the Atlas house style is a carefully composed mosaic of the best parts of the region: the red wines, sourced primarily from the Atlas estate vineyards at White Hut in the north and Auburn to the south, are elegant yet powerful, and well structured; the whites, sourced from vineyards at Watervale in the Clare Valley and from the Adelaide Hills are finely structured, aromatic and pure. Alongside these is a selection of single-vineyard wines, only produced when a vineyard’s fruit is deemed worthy of celebration on its own.
This approach has delivered a folio of wonderful wines and a matching folio of accolades, including being named as one of the ten best new wineries for 2013 by James Halliday. And as vintages have passed, Atlas Wines has grown, steadily and organically.
In 2020, Atlas acquired a second Clare Valley vineyard, just south of Leasingham, at the start of the region’s renowned Golden Mile. Planted predominantly with Shiraz, as well as Tempranillo and select other varieties, it heralds an exciting new chapter for the business.
Seeking Distribution in
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA
Winemaker Bio
As Winemaker Adam Barton tells it, he first discovered the magic of wine while working in the Hunter Valley, in a glass of 1965 Lindemans Hunter River Burgundy. After studying Oenology at the University of Adelaide, he embarked on a winemaking career that so far spans two decades and three continents, with work in McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, the Barossa Valley, Western Australia, the south of France and California’s Central Coast.
Adam’s winemaking approach for Atlas Wines is typified by careful curation and nurturing of the highest-quality grapes, the utmost care and attention to detail, and minimal intervention.
