Our History

Despite having no family connections with the wine industry, Howard's first job after completing High School was as a trainee winemaker in a family winery in NSW.

Howard gained enormous experience as a Senior Winemaker during his 14 years at Seppelt Great Western (1970-1984), who at the time were one of Australia's major Sparkling wine producers.

Howard's job with Seppelt brought him to Rutherglen several times as the relief / locum winemaker at their Rutherglen winery.

After tiring of the petty politics of a large winery, Howard decided to relocate permanently to Rutherglen, and spent about 5 years as the Winemaker and General Manager of Jolimont wines in Rutherglen.

While working as winemaker for Jolimont, Howard made the first Sparkling white & Sparkling red wines in North east Victoria

Howard made the first very small batch of his own Sparkling Shiraz, using purchased grapes and the facilities at other local wineries

Howard planted the first hectare of vines (Shiraz) on his newly purchased property

The newly built winery & Anderson Cellar door were ready for action for the 1993 vintage

During the 90's, we expanded our Shiraz plantings to 4 hectares. Then in 1999 we added a hectare each of Durif & Petit verdot

After graduating with first class honours in Winemaking from Adelaide University, Howard's eldest daughter gained some experience working in France before returning to work alongside Howard in 2005

More additions were made to the vineyard - half a hectare each of Tempranillo (a Spanish red variety), Saperavi (a Georgian red variety - which is north of Turkey, near the Black Sea), and Chenin blanc, and also 1 hectare of Brown Muscat and a couple of rows of Viognier

In the early 2010's, seeing how well Durif and Saperavi in particular were performing - even through the drought - the decision was made to graft over some of our Shiraz to these varieties. Our vineyard area now stands at: 2.5ha Durif, 2ha Shiraz, 1ha Petit verdot, 1ha Saperavi, 1ha Muscat, 0.5ha Tempranillo, 0.5ha Chenin blanc & 0.3ha Viognier.

This varietal mix allows us to be self sufficient. We don't buy any grapes, and we make all we grow into Anderson wine.

Anderson winery and Anderson vineyard are audited for Sustainable Winegrowing Australia and become certified members

Saperavi continues to impress, so we plant another half hectare of it, taking our total plantings of the variety to 1.5 hectares (these young vines are expected to start producing in 2026).