Description
About Mike Press Wines
Mike Press Wines are a small family owned vineyard and winery based in the picturesque Adelaide Hills, South Australia. We are proud to have set the benchmark for producing quality wine at an outstanding price.
What started out as an idyllic retirement plan for Mike and Judy Press, has turned into a thriving business offering amazingly affordable wines to the world.
After working in the South Australian wine industry for over 40 years – from Penfolds under Max Schubert, to Seppelt, and finally to Mildara Blass as chief winemaker – Mike and Judy purchased their property in Kenton Valley, near Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills, in 1998. Planting 30 acres that year and a further 30 the following year, the plan was to sell their fruit to his industry contacts. Unfortunately, their timing wasn’t great as by the time the vines were producing, Australia was struggling with one of its biggest ‘grape-gluts’.
After a couple tough years, they soon realised that their best option was to turn their fruit into wine, so in 2003 Mike dusted off his winemaking boots and produced cleanskins for sale to the local market. Mike and Judy walked the streets of suburbs all over Adelaide and through the hills dropping flyers in peoples letter boxes and the cleanskins quickly gained a cult following, continually selling out.
Over the years their family has got involved in the business. Son James runs the vineyard, daughter Sarah pounded the pavement selling their wine in SA and daughter-in-law Rachel now looks after their customers. Slowly they expanded outside of SA, appointing distributors in the eastern states and eventually in SA too, choosing Empire Liquor to represent their brand at home.
Then in 2016 they met Bob and Yuko Harris. A fellow wine industry couple who are as passionate about wine and South Australia as Mike and Judy are – they connected immediately – and in 2017 Bob and Yuko purchased Mike Press Wines as a great addition to their other wine businesses. From the get-go they wanted this to be a strong working partnership with Mike and Judy staying on to be part of it all, the fact that it was to continue as a family run business was very important to both parties. The whole Press Family were thrilled to accept this offer. Not only does this give Mike and Judy the opportunity to be involved in the next chapter for Mike Press Wines including branching into export, but it is also giving them the opportunity to continue doing what they love, with the added freedom to enjoy their retirement – which was the whole point of this business anyway!
Bob and Yuko have a chateau and wine business in France, with the Phoenix Wine Club in Burgundy and a winery with vineyards in Beaujolais, as well as Schubert’s Vineyard on a neighbouring block to our Kenton Valley vineyard.
Bob is a South Australian returning to Adelaide after a prestigious international career and his wife Yuko has for the last 20 years translated and published the Harry Potter series in Japan, while also running several publishing companies around the world.
