ABOUT Strawhouse

Justin Byrne & Meg Simpson own and operate Strawhouse Wines in the cool climate, high-altitude Orange Wine Region. The dryland vineyard was planted by us in 1997 and is now a mature vineyard that is naturally low cropping. We make small amounts of fine wine under the Strawhouse label.

The vineyard gets its name from the strawbale house that we built in 1998 adjacent to the vineyard. Strawhouse is on Boree Lane, Lidster, 12km west of Orange off the Cargo Road.

The vineyard, at 800m, slopes to the north and east mitigating frost risk. It borders Canobolas-Smith (now Canobolas Wines) and shares the north facing slope on the famed basalt soils of the slopes of Gaanha Bula-Mount Canobolas. Planted to Shiraz, Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, the vines are dry-grown on their own roots at 2m x 2.2m spacing.

The first commercial release was the 2002 Strawhouse Shiraz and over the years fruit from Strawhouse has gone into many other wines. Now with a mature vineyard and Justin as winemaker, we are making small amounts of fine wine under the Strawhouse label.