Just Pinot...

"When you're in your own lane, there is no traffic." US film-maker Ava DuVernay gave good advice to those who dared to take it. The reality is most of us join the queue. But not Will Adkins. 

When the former Tamar Ridge general manager and his wife Jacquie decided it was time for them to strike out on their own in Tasmania's cool climate wine industry, they didn't put much thought into what to plant on their 10ha property at Rowella.

It had to be Pinot Noir.

Just Pinot. Nothing else.

"The general rule of thumb is that if you're starting a small family wine business, you have to work with a selection of international varieties – like Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Noir – in order to be able to run a successful vineyard cellar door," Adkins muses.

"We wanted a much narrower focus. Our philosophy is based on doing one good thing and doing it really well. There was never any thought we'd do anything other than Pinot Noir. It responds really well to our climate and soils here, and you get much more interesting and different flavours from Pinot in the Tamar Valley than you typically find in other parts of Tasmania."

The couple's Westella Vineyard is on Westwoods Road, Rowella. It takes its name from a mash-up of the two principal words that fix its location.

The Adkinses bought the property back in 2014. They spent several years looking at a variety of options, including purchasing an existing vineyard.

But that was never going to work when the business focus was going to be both singular and laser-like.

"Our region excels at Pinot Noir, so that's all that we ever wanted to grow here," adds Jacquie.

The couple waited 10 years for the right moment to take their next decisive step. Starting from scratch meant there was ground to prepare, vineyard infrastructure to plan and install.

Will Adkins had spent two decades directing vineyard operations from his company office at Kayena, five kilometres away. But planting and training vines, pruning and protecting them was outside his working brief. His background and experience was in wine marketing.

Indeed, it was wine marketing that brought the couple together. They met while students at Roseworthy College in South Australia. Fully qualified and itching to begin their careers in wine, both headed to the Barossa Valley.

Will went to St Hallett. Jacquie went to Charles Melton. Two kilometres apart. In big, beautiful, Barossa red country.

By the early 2000s, the couple had relocated to Launceston – Will's home town – and had become diehard fans of their beloved Tamar Valley Pinot Noir.

"The important thing about Pinot is that if you grow it in places that are just not suited to the variety, you don't get its true personality," Will says.

Indeed, Pinot Noir almost disappeared completely from the hot climate, Australian wine-scape of sixty years ago. 

Industry statistics compiled in 1965 show there were just 12 hectares of the variety in the whole country.

(Source: K. Anderson, Growth and Cycles in Australia's Wine Industry. University of Adelaide Press, 2015.)

By 1990 – the year the Adkinses headed to the Barossa – the country's emerging cool climate wine industry had come to the variety's rescue with just under 1000ha of Pinot Noir planted in Australian vineyards.

Today, the area is five times that nationally.

In 2024, Tasmanian vineyards processed 16 percent of the total Pinot Noir crush in Australia – the largest of any region, apart from the Riverland (which also processed 16 percent).

Adkins put two decades of local knowledge to good use and selected four clones of Pinot Noir for establishment at Westella. They are MV6, D4V2 (Pommard), 115 and 777. There are similarities and subtle differences in abundance.

What's really important is they allow the couple to produce both traditional method sparkling and still table wines.

Westella produced the first of them in vintage 2018.

The geology at this northern end of the Tamar Valley is a complex mosaic of volcanic and sedimentary formations, with basalt outcrops offering protection from river erosion while providing iron-rich, well-drained soils essential for growing premium Pinot Noir.

Westella is just short of one kilometre south of the river, so ironstone and sandy/alluvial soils are more prominent here than on neighbouring vineyard sites much closer to the kanamaluka/Tamar.

"The site is warm enough to ensure we get the ripe flavours we're looking for in our Pinots, and just cool enough to retain the natural acidity we like to see in our wines," Will says.

"The cool/mild climate gives us a nice, long growing season with a gradual build-up of flavour intensity in the bunches. This valley is really quite special. We have a real opportunity of grabbing the Pinot mantle and making it a premium offering that's appreciated all around the world. We're already seeing people call Tasmanian sparkling wine 'the Champagne of the south.'"

In 2023, the couple reached a significant business milestone with the opening of their cleverly-devised and crafted vineyard cellar door. Brought to fruition by Launceston's MyBuild Collective, the quality of its construction soon became a talking point among visitors – and within the building trade itself.

Months later, the couple picked up two major prizes at the annual Tasmanian Master Builders Association awards. Their Westella cellar door was named Best Construction under $1 Million, as well as being acclaimed People's Choice.

The building exterior is clad with traditional vertical green hardwood shiplap. The couple watched on in amazement as two company tradies worked an entire winter, putting it together board by board, like an enormous jigsaw.

"The timber used in the interior is beautiful, highlighting rather than hiding its imperfections," Jacquie notes.

"You can see a lot of gum vein, and the red sap on some of the boards almost makes you feel like you're on the inside of a wine barrel."

The couple's rigorous, hands-on approach to wine-growing that same year earned Westella recognition as Wine Tasmania's most improved producer during its 2023 VinØ program.

The program is run by the industry body and is an entirely voluntary one. VinØ ('vin zero') participants are given support in establishing a sustainable framework for vineyard management that contributes to high-quality wine without harmful or negative impacts on the environment or local communities.

With viticulture on the Westella site now more or less sorted, the next milestone will be the establishment of a small storage facility to house the company's wine stocks. Beyond that is the possibility of having a fully-operational winery facility.

Wine production to date has resulted from a very effective and on-going partnership with Fran Austin and Shane Holloway at Delamere Wines. The Pipers Brook couple have impeccable track records for both still and traditional method sparkling wines.

Right now, the Adkinses are looking forward to seeing their 2025 Westella White Pinot in bottle. It will become the couple's seventh or eighth product in their vintage wine portfolio.

Long-time observers of the Tasmanian wine industry are likely to experience a sense of deja-vu when the wine finally makes it to the Westella Vineyard cellar door. White Pinots were big sellers at Delamere when the winemaking there was managed by vineyard founders Dallas and Richard Richardson.

It was a similar story at Holm Oak, just down the road from Westella. In the mid-1990s, Holm Oak co-founder Nick Butler also did a roaring trade at cellar door with an unorthodox Pinot Noir dry white.

"When you're in your own lane, there is no traffic."

Last page update: December 2025