David Franz is the son of Australian winemaking legend, Peter Lehmann. After spending time in great wine regions around the world, David returned home to Barossa Valley, Australia, with the desire to make wine burning bright within him. Peter (his father) wisely set David to work as a labourer in their vineyards since (as Peter put it) “first you have to understand where wine is really made”.
Through experience and great mentors (including his father Peter), his knowledge and passion for vines have grown. David now manages 75 acres of his family’s vineyards in the Barossa and Eden valleys, which are home to some incredibly old vines – more than 130-years-old in the case of his iconic Long Gully Road Semillon! Carte blanche in the vineyards allows for a focus on producing fruit of the highest quality, without compromising for the sake of yields. This means David produces his wines from the vine to the bottle – “pruning is where the journey starts, not just when the grapes are picked and arrive at the winery.”
David’s winemaking philosophy is wild and minimalist. Furthermore, his passion for the fruit he produces and the wines he makes is unrivalled. His wines can be savoured with the knowledge that they have been nurtured first for a year on the vines, then crafted for a few months in the winery before four years of maturation in wood and the bottle. Each bottle is carefully hand-printed and wrapped before being placed in a hand-printed carton, then sent out to the rest of the world.
