Gembrook Hill: They Said It Would Never Work

In early 2012 I drove out to Gembrook, in the Yarra Valley, to visit the Gembrook Hill estate, and to have lunch with its founders and owners, June and Ian Marks, and their winemaker son, Andrew Marks. I only just rediscovered this article, in 2026, with first appeared on The Winefront site. I’ve (very) lightly re-edited it, and added a 2026 update.

The bottom reaches of the Gembrook Hill vineyard in the upper Yarra Valley curve like an in-swinger along the contours of a hill. Immediately below the vines is the shoulder of the frost line. The estate’s vines have been growing here for twenty-eight years; they grow on a hillside with the steepness of a buzz cut. A long line of promising wines have been yielded from this vineyard, but with the release of the 2008 Gembrook Hill Pinot Noir and again with the new 2010 Pinot Noir the day now dawns for this vineyard to step out into history. These are world class wines and this vineyard needs to be taken seriously.

As with most breakthroughs – they said it would never work. When the Marks family bought this land in the early 1980s (‘it took five years to find it and three minutes to decide on it’, owner Ian Marks says), the family was advised by various wine industry folks that the site would be ‘good for sauvignon blanc’ (a variety that was none too sexy at the time) but ‘you’ll never get any colour into your reds’. The reason for this advice was that the vineyard is in the coolest area of the Yarra Valley.

The effects of either (depending on your viewpoint) a long drought or climate change, have meant that this super-cool site is warmer than it once was; though the grapes are still harvested on average three weeks later than most other parts of the Yarra Valley. The weather changes have been a good thing for the quality of the wines. That said, even from a hot vintage like 2008 the Gembrook Hill pinot noir did not have a great deal of colour; nor does the newly released 2010. You can’t drink colour though, and the flavours, and tannin structure, of these wines are brilliant.

‘We encourage our winemakers,’ Ian Marks says, ‘to push things to the edge. That’s what it’s all about for small wineries. If you’re not going to push things then I really can’t see a lot of point.’

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The winemakers Ian Marks referred to, at the time, were Timo Mayer, who had made the Gembrook Hill wines since 2000, and to son Andrew Marks as well, who was making wines under his own label, The Wanderer. Andrew Marks now makes the Gembrook Hill wines himself, though Timo Mayer continued on with Gembrook Hill for many years. Ian Marks, sadly, passed away nearly a decade ago, suddenly, and now has a wine dedicated to him, named I.J.M Pinot Noir, made from a tiny selection of the oldest vines on the estate, only in years deemed worthy, and in miniscule quantity. Timo Mayer had then, and still has, his own eponymous label, which is rarely seen courtesy of the fact that it sells out so fast. Good people, strong people, dedicated people, hard-thinking people have always been the norm at Gembrook Hill.

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I wrote in this 2012 article that “these are world class wines and this vineyard needs to be taken seriously.” This sentence almost seems quaint given what has transpired since. Each year Gembrook Hill releases a handful, or less, new wines. The 2011 wines were released in 2013, after my visit and after this article. When you look at the Gembrook Hill wines between the vintages 2011–2025 inclusive on The Winefront site, 25 wines have scored 95 points or higher. That’s a remarkable strike rate. In 2012 I felt the need to go in to bat for Gembrook Hill. There’s now no need. In 2025 I went so far as to write “Read everything you can about Australian pinot noir – and then just go out and buy Wanderer and Gembrook Hill.” I grouped The Wanderer with Gembrook Hill because both brands are made by Andrew Marks, and both employ grapes grown in the Upper Yarra. I wrote this line because the wines of Gembrook Hill are, routinely, that special.

See also [Gembrook Hill] is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.