From its beginnings in the Barossa Valley in 1851, Seppelt has pioneered vineyard plantings in regions of southern and eastern Australia. Constantly innovating, Seppelt is creating new wine styles, new packaging and new ideas that position this outstanding winery as a world leader. Seppelt's Great Western Winery is famous for The Drives (the labyrinthine catacombs of sparkling cellars) and home to the two champion Shiraz wines, St. Peters of Great Western, and the world-renowned Show Sparkling Shiraz.

Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold was born in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, graduating in 1838. Like many doctors before and since, Dr Penfold had a firm belief in the medicinal value of wine. Before he left Britain he had obtained vine cuttings from the south of France and these were planted around the site of the modest stone cottage he built with his wife, Mary, at Magill on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1845. The couple called this house The Grange, after Mary's home in England.

Since 1877 when Samuel McWilliam planted his first vines at Corowa in New South Wales, successive generations of the McWilliam family have been pioneering the art of fine winemaking in Australia. Always innovative, McWilliam's has ensured its position at the forefront of Australian winemaking by introducing new production techniques and some of the world's most advanced technology in the company's wineries and vineyards.

He established a winery on the banks of Adelaide's River Torrens in 1853. His Bankside winery was the start of an outstanding family wine business that grew to become one of the world's great wine companies. Thomas Hardy was a self-made man, a pioneer of immense character. With a mixture of energy, determination, shrewd judgment, innovation and a touch of daring, he pursued the highest standards in winemaking. At Bankside, and later at his McLaren Vale property Tintara, he focused on quality and craftsmanship. Tintara was to become the centre of Hardy's enterprise and by the late 1800s was one of the best-equipped and managed wineries in Australia. This success was substantially due to Hardy's initiatives in planting higher quality, lower yielding varieties rather than the coarser, heavier-yielding types more common at the time. His willingness to experiment with and to use novel equipment, much of which he designed and built himself, also contributed to this success.

The Bidgeebong Triangle encompasses three distinct districts, Tumbarumba in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, the Hilltops district centred on the town of Young, and the Murrumbidgee plain around Gundagai on the Hume Highway about half way between Sydney and Melbourne. The name Bidgeebong is a combination of Murrumbidgee and Billabong. The Murrumbidgee River is the lifeline of the region. Billabongs meaning places of still water in the Wiradjuri language, were the gathering or meeting places of the original owners of the area, the Wiradjuri tribe. The Wiradjuri occupied this land from time immemorial until Irish farmers established and named the first stations here in the 1800s.

Hilltops enjoys adequate and reliable rainfall, with mild days and cool nights, allowing for the slow, even ripening of fruit. The region’s high altitude, cool prevailing winds from the Great Dividing Range which offset diurnal temperatures, and the high minerality of the soil are three significant elements which combine to make the Hilltops a distinctive wine producing region. A dry summer and autumn, with cool nights and mild days exacerbate the extended ripening period. Heavy snowfall and frost in winter are quite common; and whilst substantial rainfall occurs in the growing season, most falls in spring.