Located among the picturesque beauty of Lower Norton, the winery currently has 12 acres of vines producing some of the region’s finest wines.

The winery was founded by Wendy and Don Spence in 1996, with their son Chris planting all the vines by himself.

The businesses was handed down to Chris and his wife Sam three years ago.

“It’s an important part of our family and we love it here,” Chris said.

Since its foundation, the winery has been recognised with numerous awards and judged by some of the country’s finest critics.

“We’ve won a lot of show gold medals in the past and have been featured in many wine guides,” he said.

“We have been fortunate enough to be critiqued by James Halliday, who is a leading Australian wine critic.

“Our Arapiles Run Shiraz was featured in his 20 best Australian red wines in 2006, which was an incredible honour.”

The winery produces five varieties of wine, which are all available for purchase at the cellar door.

These include three types of Shiraz – Wendy’s Block Shiraz, Arapiles Run Shiraz and Rockface Shiraz.

The Arapiles Run Shiraz is the winery’s flagship wine and is made form the winery’s oldest block of Shiraz vines. It has won numerous gold medals and acclaim.

Norton Estate also produces a Cabernet Sauvignon, which features a palate of spice, ripe tannins and oak.

All of the winery’s red wines are aged for 18 months until they are ready for bottling.

The winery’s most popular variety is the Sauvignon Blanc, which features aromas of fresh melon and tropical fruit.

Sam said the winery often ran out of the variety due to its popularity.

“We’re just about to grow some more Sauvignon Blanc vines after we ran out last year,” she said.

“We’ll be using cuttings from last year so hopefully in a few years we won’t run out.”

All grapes at the winery are hand picked.

The winery not only has a great reputation with wine connoisseurs across the country, but it is highly regarded by local restaurateurs.

“We used to distribute our wine all around Western Victoria and the Coast,” he said.

“But we found a little while back that we could just rely on the local markets and support from the local community.

“That meant we didn’t need to go further afield to sell.”

Norton Estate wine is served at most of the restaurants in Horsham.

One of the winery’s most exciting upcoming ventures will be creation of a brand new variety of red wine.

“It’s exciting that we have this new variety of grape growing called the Norton,” he said.

“We sought out the grape and collected some cuttings from a place near Port Macquarie.

“The vine was named after Dr Daniel Norton and originated in Virginia in 1820.

“The vines are quite rare and the wine has somewhat of a cult following in the US."

Chris said that during the American Prohibition in the 1920s, all wine vines were removed, including the Norton.

“It virtually went into extinction,” he said.

“However a few vines survived by being planted in secret in the hills, kept hidden by bootleggers.”

Chris said the winery’s newly aquired vines were coming along nicely.

“Once they’ve matured we’ll be able to produce our very own Norton Estate Norton, which will be very exciting,” he said.

“The vines are enjoying the climate here and we put in 1000 vines to start with.

“We’re the only place in Australia outside of NSW that grows the variety.

“We’ve got a big job in front us where we need to graph the area.”

He said the winery was going into the next step of its season.

“We’re ready to prune and are just waiting for the last few green leaves to fall off,” he said.

“I’ll be doing most of the blocks myself.

“We just need a little bit more rain and sun.

“Some vines are getting quite old so they need some cane work. Most are around 20 years old now.

“We want to do it properly to ensure the longevity of the vine and make that the quality is maintained well into the future.

“I see it like this, the vines are our workers and we have to look after them so they can work hard.”

The winery is devoted to ensuring their environmental impact is positive and it has an extensive vitaculture routine.

"One of the things we’ve gone in the last six years has been to move away from using chemical derived fertilisers,” he said.

“We now use composting from duck manure, which we get locally from Luv-a-Duck. We keep the compost for 12 months before we put it on the vines.

“It is also put over the whole vineyard to build the soil and make it more fertile.”

Chris said the more environmentally friendly approach had made a big difference in the health of the winery’s vines.

“It’s had a great impact on our vines,” he said.

“Another thing we’ve been doing is using worm juice to increase that fertilisation. We get our product from a young Horsham entrepreneur.

“He’s a Horsham College student who’s either in Year 7 or 8, and he came up with the idea to produce the worm juice in his backyard.

“We buy as much of the stuff as we can and as much as he can provide. We put it on a drip system over our vines.

“The next in thing we’re planning to do to add to soil health is adding uneaten hay from our sheep to the compost.

“We want to add as many nutrients as possible.

“Anything we can do to build our compost and help soil health, we’ll do.

“It also allows us to reuse products that would otherwise be wasted.”

One of the winery’s most popular draw cards is its newly renovated and expanded cellar door, which offers wine tastings and food platters on weekends.

“The cellar door was refitted in February to include a bigger dining area,” he said.

“We also have plans to expand the decking around the cellar door to include more outdoor seating options.”

Norton Estate Wine’s cellar door is open 11am to 4pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.