Kay Brothers

Australia

About

Kay Brothers is a McLaren Vale institution where old-fashioned methods are proudly employed to create wines that truly express their terroir, with the aim in the winery to do whatever possible to preserve the amazing flavours and characters nature provides in the vineyard. To achieve this, the winemaking team strives to be as gentle as possible from harvest all the way through to the original open fermenters, hand plunging, and the heritage 1928 Celestin Coq & Compagnie basket press that has been in continuous use for nearly a century. Small batches are handled individually, maximising the unique characters that stem from each vine, with wines then transferred to large oak formats to optimise oak integration and create balanced oak influence. These barrels are stored in the cool, stone-walled cellars in a stable climate, allowing the wines to mature gracefully, with the resulting wines exhibiting the balance so carefully worked towards—approachable wines with great ageing ability, soft tannins, fruit quality, and intensity of flavour. The basket press reflects the traditional winemaking philosophy, with grapes pressed gently using a hydraulic ram that raises the basket and trolley so grape pulp and skins are gently pressed against the static top plate, forcing the juice to run out through the wooden slats whilst the wine collects in the pan on the trolley and is run through a sieve before being pumped off to tank to settle. Whilst this process is labour intensive and time consuming, the team is confident it translates to superior quality, with the winemaker's skill coming to the fore in the treatment and handling of the wine that results from each pressing stage.

Regions

McLaren Vale

History

The story of the Kay family can be traced back to 1724 in Scotland where their ancestor James Keye was born in Arbroath, with the Kay family crest—a Griffin's head featured on the coat of arms for Scottish branches of the Kay family—now a fitting symbol for Kay Brothers wines. In 1850, William Kay, James Keye's great grandson, arrived in the new colony of Adelaide aboard the migrant ship Sea Queen, and in 1853 he married Sarah Catcheside, a talented botanical artist and fellow migrant from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with whom he had 11 children including brothers Herbert and Frederick Kay, founders of Kay Brothers Wines. After the premature death of their father, Bert and Fred set out to find an industry of their own, settling on an agricultural property in McLaren Vale originally established by Richard Aldersey, who named the property Amery for the farm where he grew up in Hampshire, England. Bert and Fred began living at Amery in 1891, and within seven years had planted 103 acres of vines, with their first vintage in 1895 yielding 2,000 gallons mostly a dry red blend destined for export to Britain. The brothers were in partnership for 57 years until Fred died in 1947 and Bert passed away in 1948, a record unequalled in Australian winemaking history. The winery passed to Bert's son Cuthbert 'Cud' Kay, who made significant innovations in the 1950s and 60s, then to Colin Kay in the 1970s, who further refined the range and created icon wines including the first vintage of Block 6 Shiraz in 1985 and the Hillside Shiraz. In 1993 all the buildings were listed on the South Australian Heritage register, and today Colin's daughter Elspeth continues the family tradition alongside general manager and chief winemaker Duncan Kennedy, maintaining the almost daily diary that has been kept since Bert and Fred's very first day at Amery over 130 years ago, providing invaluable knowledge and understanding of the Amery vineyard that will inform decisions well into the future.
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