Buninyong's Bended Knee Vineyard has plans for its own production, bottling facility

Bended Knee Vineyard, in Gittings Lane, plans to use an existing building to produce wine from the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes sourced from its 1.5Ha vineyard which was established in 1999.

There are no plans for a cellar door or visitors on site, but owners Peter and Pauline Roche want to move production on site rather than sending the grapes away for processing.

Production at the vineyard would take place following harvest, which typically occurs over four weeks in autumn in March and April.

Following picking the grapes would be processed into juice, and fermented before being matured in small oak barrels or stainless steel tanks, all to take place in the existing shed.

According to the planning application, Bended Knee currently produces around four tonnes of grapes which fluctuates depending on seasonal conditions.

Last year production was less than one tonne (equivalent to 70 cases or 840 bottles of wine) with forecasts of reaching seven tonnes of production (500 cases or 6000 bottles) in about 2025.

IN OTHER NEWS

"The scale of the operation is too small to use the truck mounted mobile bottling lines that larger operators use. Bottling on this scale is conducted using small gravity fed fillers; the movement of bottles is done by hand," the planning documents state.

Grape waste material such as skins and seeds, and other vineyard waste including vine prunings, wood chips, cardboard and other green material would be composted with the compost then returned to the vineyard to enrich the soil and return nutrients to the plants.

Our team of local journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the Ballarat community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: