Jim Lumbers and Anne Caine established Lerida Estate in 1997, starting with a degraded pasture carefully selected for its viticultural and tourism potential. They are committed to building Lerida Estate into a substantial wine business targeting the “luxury goods” segment of the market with exceptional wines.

Lerida Estate has already won numerous medals and awards, including the ACT Chief Ministers’ Export Award, and recently a Commendation in the 2007 Canberra and Region Tourism Awards. The wines are carried in many of Australia’s top restaurants. They sell in the super premium and icon price ranges at up to $60 a bottle. The quality of the wine being produced by this very young business is testament to the potential for viticulture of the soil and climate (terroir) of the eastern slopes of the Lake George Range.

Jim is a business strategy consultant to some of Australia, New Zealand and Asia’s largest companies. He has worked for CSIRO and the Boston Consulting Group and now heads Lumbers Consulting. This business was originally created to allow Jim to work part-time on developing the wine business. However, it has been so successful that it now leaves him with little time for the winery business. Recent clients include Windlab Systems, Mirvac, Boral and a number of energy utilities in Australia and the nearby region.

Anne, who was a partner in Corrs Chambers Westgarth, left the firm in 2005 in order to take over the management of Lerida Estate.

Anne is also President for the Canberra District Wine Industry Association, an Executive Committee Member of the NSW Wine Industry Association, and operates a highly successful Café on weekends and public holidays.

What are we trying to achieve?

Lerida Estate is the manifestation of Jim’s long-held passion to make an outstanding pinot noir. The selection of Lerida as the site for his dream was influenced by the work of Dr. Edgar Riek at next-door Lake George Wines. With wild yeast and a strong focus on naturally ripened bunch tannins, Edgar had succeeded in making some of the best New World Pinots we have seen.

Drawing on Edgar's experience, the objective is a pinot made from low-yielding vines with elegant, secondary flavours using wild yeast and minimal intervention. In other words, Australian quality fruit with an overtone of French-style elegance and complexity.

A significant step in the latter direction occurred in 2003 with the employment of a young French winemaker, Yoann Malandain. This built on the tremendous groundwork put in by Angus Campbell, the founding winemaker. The first vintage was literally made under the stars.

Lerida Estate has continued the 'French connection' by employing a french winemaker each subsequent vintage.

Nevertheless, a winery based solely on a one grape variety is not a realistic proposition, at least in this country. Jim and Anne decided to produce a range of white and red wines both 'easy drinking' wines, as well as super premium wines. After pinot, the main varieties are chardonnay, pinot gris and merlot, with small quantities of Shiraz, Cabernet Franc and Viognier.

In addition to grapes grown on the estate, Lerida Estate purchases grapes from other growers in the Canberra District. These are seen as complementing those available from the estate. While originally we purchased grapes from a range of areas (Mudgee, Cowra), our policy now is to source all additional fruit only from the Canberra District to maintain the regional character of the wines we make. The main variety we source from other Canberra District vineyards is Shiraz as we do not have a large number of Shiraz vines. We use our Lake George Shiraz for our flagship Shiraz Viognier.