Saxonvale Vineyard is the name of the former vineyard, winery and wine brand established in the late 1960’s on this unique site on the Fordwich Sill. The winery and brand have long gone but the old 29 ha vineyard remains which we lease. The vineyard provides us with grapes for our Limited Release Wines of White Label Verdelho, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz Mourvèdre.

Timbervines was purchased by Lisa and I in 2005. It has 30 ha of mature vines, including our 'old clones' that we have grafted over the last decade. This vineyard includes our Francis John Margan block from which we make our Aged Release Semillon, our BC4 Shiraz block, our Tempranillo Graciano Shiraz field blend and some of our best Shiraz, including our Aged Release Shiraz.

Fordwich Hill Vineyard spans 26ha in total. It was first planted in 1970 by Lindemans to Shiraz and Chardonnay with later plantings to Semillon and we have maintained these old vines. Many of our Originals wines are grown here and our White Label Fordwich Hill Semillon and Fordwich Hill Shiraz come from easterly facing slopes on this vineyard.

Our Ceres Hill Vineyard has entirely been established by us and we planted varieties traditional to the Hunter as well as pioneering ones. This is the property where the winery and tourism operations are based and was first planted by us in 1989 with just 2ha of Semillon. It was the start of Margan Wines and plantings have increased over the decades to a total of 16ha. There are three soil types on this property: grey clay (Semillon and Chardonnay); sandy loam (Albariño) and red clay sand (Barbera and Merlot).

Ceres Hill Semillon and Ceres Hill Chardonnay are planted on an easterly facing slope on the hill on grey clay. It is an infertile soil causing the vines to struggle which maintains low yields and concentrates flavours in the grapes. The soil ensure acidity in the grapes is high which is the hallmark of Hunter Semillon and this finer style of Chardonnay and allows the wines to age.
We were the first to plant Barbera in the Hunter in 1998. It is planted just behind the winery on a small block of volcanic clay.

We planted Albarino in 2014, being again the first in the Hunter to do so and one of the first in Australia. It is planted to sandy loam between the Kitchen Garden and the Wollombi Brook.