1991
The first vines are planted
A mix of red and white varieties is chosen. Planting is completed in 2000 with the riesling block near the cellar door.
2013
We purchase the vineyard
Plans are made to build a house and move from Sydney to Orange.
2014
Our first vintage
A tough one, with two major rain events, yet two of our wines win trophies at the NSW Wine Awards. We realise we are onto something special.
2015
Getting the varieties right
Under-performing red varieties – cabernet sauvignon and merlot – are grafted to white varieties and pinot noir more suited to the cool site.
2016
Some big wins!
Colmar Estate blitzes the Orange Wine Show, winning five trophies including Best White Wine and Best Wine of Show.
2022
27 trophies (and counting)
Colmar Estate becomes the Orange Region’s most awarded vineyard, winning 27 trophies at Australian wine shows in our first five vintages.
Colmar Estate
We craft distinctive, high quality wines from hand-picked grapes, grown on our high altitude vineyard in Orange.
Just 10 minutes’ drive from the gastronomic heart of town, our lovingly tended, family-owned vineyard is a sight for sore eyes. But the real beauty is to be found in the distinctive wines we craft from high-quality fruit grown at 980 metres above sea level. If you like wine you’ll love Colmar Estate and the warm welcome that awaits you at our cellar door.
790 Pinnacle Rd, Orange, NSW 2800
Monday - Friday: 11.00am – 4.00pm
Weekends and public holidays: 10.00am – 5.00pm.
Featured Products
Select from our bestselling wines
People
Meet Team Colmar – the dedicated group of people that have made Colmar Estate happen
Bill and Jane Shrapnel
Co-Founders
Wine lovers and passionate owners of Colmar Estate. It was 30 years in the planning!
Sarah Shrapnel
Marketing Manager
Our daughter, graphic designer and food/travel blogger extraordinaire. Sarah designed our labels and the website. She also assists with communications and all the technical stuff.
Will Rikard-Bell
Winemaker
A passionate and inspiring winemaker committed to producing small batches of hand-crafted, ultra-premium wines from the pristine fruit plucked from our cool, high altitude vineyard.
Ian ‘Pearcy’ Pearce
Viticulturist
Our viticulturalist. What Ian doesn’t know about growing premium, cool climate grapes isn’t worth knowing. An advocate of ‘all great wines start in the vineyard’.
The Orange Wine Region
The Orange Wine Region is known for its high altitude vineyards. The higher you go the cooler it gets, allowing a wide range of grape varieties to be grown successfully.
Most wine regions are known for one or two varieties; Orange is known for its incredible diversity. But there is one constant – the elegant, cool climate style of the wines.
Harvest 2021
A huge thanks to our wonderful team of pickers who ensured the 2021 vintage was a success!
News
What’s in a wine label? Actually, when it comes to Colmar Estate it’s quite a lot. Each of our three labels provides some insight into not just the wine in the bottle but also the way we think, our focus on ...
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Riesling, considered by some to be THE best white grape variety, has a long history in Australia, dating back to the 1860s. By the 1970s riesling was so popular that it became virtually synonymous with quali...
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Never have the challenges been so great yet the potential rewards so high as they were in the 2022 vintage – our ninth at Colmar Estate. The 2022 vintage was always going to be different. Spring was so cold ...
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Are you sitting at home wondering why the world of wine is currently going nuts over pinot noir? Certainly the stars have aligned for this fashionable red grape that was born in Burgundy about two thousand y...
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We have had not 1 but 2 wines featured in the latest issue of Halliday magazine. Our 2015 Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Sparkling scored 95 points and our 2021 Block 5 Riesling scored a whopping 96 points. Ned G...
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People who taste wine for a living often long to find a wine with the ‘wow factor’ – that special something that lifts the tasting experience to another level. Jane and I were recently wowed. Pre-covid, we t...
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