Our vineyard is 13 km from the scenic coastal town of Albany. It's about as far away from the rat-race as you could possibly get and a long way from heavy industry and contaminated environments. Which fits with our desire to "tread lightly on the earth" and our commitment to the use of organic principles to produce this wine.

We've kept our vineyard small so that we can put all of our efforts into producing our wine in a way that fits with our philosophy.

The majority of the vines were planted in 1998 after careful analysis of the climate, soil and water, in the conventional manner. A brigade of friends and family helped to plant one hectare of Riesling, one of Merlot and a little Sauvignon Blanc into the Marri loam. More recently a small amount of Shiraz and Pinot Noir were also planted. The vineyard slopes gently to the east, and has good exposure to the prevailling winds - a fact that has enabled us to gradually minimise our need for strong chemicals to control disease.

The vines are grown on a Smart-Dyson trellis, which opens the canopy allowing better penetration of sunlight and airflow - which again helps to minimise disease problems. Each year since the vines were established we have worked to replace conventional chemicals and fertilisers with those acceptable to organic certifiers.

In 2003, the grapes were grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fungicides. The chickens and guinea fowl are doing a great job of gobbling up the main pests, and our approach to weed control relies on mowing or slashing of a sward of clover, perennial ryegrass and some undesirables in between the vine rows. Under the vines, we find that the ryegrass smothers the weeds and sucks up some of the abundant water in the springtime, thus reducing the potential for excessive vigour. In summer, it dies off - particularly as we do not routinely water the vines - and forms a natural mulch.

The main diseases - powdery mildew and botrytis - have been controlled with the use of sulphur and compost tea (a brew with lots of happy, healthy microbes that seem to compete with the bad guys for space on the vine). Although milk was trialled two years ago as a method of fungal control, we didn't use it again because, well... it didn't work for us that year. But, we haven't given up entirely on the idea! We're scientists at heart and will continue to research ways to ensure we minimise our impact on the environment.