>> Main photo by Dragan Radocaj
HAYES FAMILY WINES
Tradition, Terroir and a touch of Serendipity
WORDS Alicia Lüdi-Schutz
A Vintage Festival bus tour introduced Brett, owner of Hayes Family Wines, to the real Barossa, and a few of its biggest personalities who remain his friends to this day.
The region’s quality wines had already attracted the Brisbane based wine lover’s attention, but it was the people that truly captured his heart, back in the 1990s.
“I used to work for a big global company and travelled the world with them,” says Brett, seated at a small table in the corner of his Stone Well winery, coffee in hand and 2025 vintage in full swing.
Metres away his winemaker, Andrew Seppelt, has just taken delivery of another load of grapes, clocking up a dozen vintages for the label in the process.
“For 20 years before I bought this place, we were coming to the Barossa for holidays,” Brett continues.
“The first Vintage Festival I went to was in the late 90s. We were doing the ‘Old Vineyard Tour’ and there was one of those life changing moments. We got off the bus and I met Marcus Schulz. He said, ‘all these wines are good, but do you want to try some really good wine?’ I went, ‘Of course!’ So, he showed me one of the wines he’d made with David Powell… as a result we became very good friends!”
Looking back fondly, Brett is grateful for having hopped on that bus.
“I got to meet those old families with the great reputations; the Schulzs, the Hoffmanns, the Angas’ and the Fromms and in hindsight that was very fortunate. Those relationships have continued to this day.”
“My idea was that all of our growers had to be growing grapes for 100 years or more on their property. Whilst I come from a family of farmers, I did not have generational history in the Barossa, so I might as well know the people who do!”
- Brett Hayes
Brett’s former life as a management consultant with a global consulting company meant he travelled to France frequently. He lived in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore and spent a lot of time away from his family in Brisbane.
“In 2012 I said to my wife Kylie, ‘at some stage I will have to retire from this corporate stuff…’ In that last 12 months, I counted 52 overnight flights.”
The search was on for a property in the Barossa, with Marcus stepping in to help. The site at 102 Mattiske Road ticked the right boxes.
“My criteria were, old vines and classic grape varieties – I knew what I loved from the Barossa, that was the classics,” Brett says.
“I wanted Grenache, Shiraz and Mataro. I also wanted a location that had the opportunity for an old cellar door. The only thing I missed out on was an old stone house, that had unfortunately already been knocked down….But our Cellar Door is the original garage so it’s over 100 years old.
In 2014, Hayes Family Wines launched its first wine. By 2019, Brett had transformed the shed next to the house into a winery ready for that year’s vintage and the Cellar Door, overlooking the 11 acres of old vines growing on the 15-acre estate, was opened.
Now dividing his time between his family in Brisbane and business in the Barossa, Brett is kept busy.
“It’s Andrew and I, and Steve Fletcher in Cellar Door and Kylie manages finance, that’s it,” he says. “It’s a small operation.”
“My idea was that all of our growers had to be growing grapes for 100 years or more on their property. Whilst I come from a family of farmers, I did not have generational history in the Barossa, so I might as well know the people who do!
“Coincidently, many of my growers are the people I met on that bus trip, the Hoffmanns, Schulzs, Fromms, the Angas family. Since then, we’ve added a couple of other old Grenache blocks, that came out of going to church out at Ebenezer with Marcus.
“I also met Andrew through those Vintage Festival events.”
Having built the business “from scratch”, Brett also wanted the wines it produced to be made in the vineyard, certified sustainable, certified organic and – as it turned out – vegan friendly.
“I don’t exactly know why. I think it was just the right thing to do for us and the people who live and work around here. We were probably one of the first winery and vineyard businesses, at least on the small end, to be certified sustainable too.”
The soils on the Hayes Family Wines estate are “tough”.
“The people who planted the old vineyards here in the 1940s were absolute geniuses. The fact is, if I did all the soil testing and dug all the holes today, I would put the same grapes back where they are.”
Andrew works on creating premium wines and Brett does the rest, dealing with growers, vineyards and the many other elements required to keep the wine business ticking along.
“Andrew has one focus. His job is to get the wine to the bottling line in the best condition he possibly can and my job is to make sure he’s got everything he needs to make that happen,” Brett says.
Working so closely together, you’d be forgiven for thinking they are related, with their brotherly banter and matching beards.
And while it is said blood is thicker than water, in this case wine trumps all.
Brett says, “Andrew’s great frustration is that we make a lot of wines!
“But when we get a really good ingredient product, say a 150-year-old Shiraz block, why blend it away? The Fromm’s 1919 block, we shouldn’t blend that away! Next thing you know, you’ve got a whole bundle of, ‘don’t blend them away’ wines!
“So, we’ve ended up with a lot of wines, probably too many. But then I sit back and think we’ve got seven Grenache blocks and they’re all 80 years or older. Probably everyone wished they had that.
“We have 30 fermenters, and every block has its own fermenter…logistically we have some advantages.”
While he’s grateful Stone Well isn’t in a frost prone area, drought conditions have proved challenging, and a fire earlier this year damaged some of the property’s prized old Grenache.
“Hail, floods, drought, fire… we’re yet to have a locust plague!’ Brett says, only half-jokingly. “They say there was one in 1977…”
Yet Andrew accepts every challenge thrown his way and the highly experienced winemaker can’t think of any other job he’d prefer to be doing.
“I see winemaking as a craft,” he says. “Trying to work out what’s going on out there in the vineyard and how to bring it into the winery. Getting it into the bottle in a way that tells a story of the season, where it’s from and, ultimately, making a tasty wine.”
Andrew’s knowledge and winemaking heritage, together with Brett’s unwavering optimism, confidence and boundless energy, has allowed Hayes Family Wines to forge its own unique history and local grapegrowers are grateful for the support.
“I think we have been very fortunate with who we have met, and what we have been able to achieve in the Barossa. But I think we have also contributed our little bit to the Barossa community too,” says Brett.
“And I’m happy with that.”
