Cirillo Estate

The Cirillo family’s viticultural lineage dates back 400 years to Calabria, Italy, before planting their dust-covered boots in the Barossa Valley in 1970, when the family’s patriarch, Vincent Cirillo, decided to purchase an abandoned old vineyard in the Light Pass district. Not only is the Barossa Valley home to some of the Earth’s most ancient soils, dating back 200 million years, but it is also home to the world’s oldest Grenache and Semillon vines, which were planted in 1848 by the Graetz family. Vincent recognized that these vines were part of Australia’s viticultural history and remained steadfast, refusing to rip them out during the great vine pull program of the 1980s. Vincent Cirillo pruned these vines into a basket-like shape, which he attributed to the vines’ ability to continue producing fruit and sold them to Barossa royalty, including Peter Lehmann, St. Hallett, and Torbreck. Under the stewardship of his father, Marco is now at the helm of this storied winery. This father-and-son duo has pruned the 1848 Grenache vineyard, and under Marco, these parcels are now bottled under the family name. Today, Marco and his wife, Annika (of the Lehmann family), along with their young daughters, continue the tradition of being custodians of these precious vineyards.