Duane Coates has a long held passion for Australian and overseas wines. He expanded his winemaking training with vintages in Burgundy with Chateau Demessey, the Rhone Valley with Domaine Francois Villard and the Douro Valley with the Fladgate Partnership (Taylor’s). Exposure to European wines and winemaking has given Duane a broad perspective on techniques and wines styles and heavily influenced the winemaking philosophy of Coates Wines is not predicated on fashion or blind adherence to dogma. The processes they use (and avoid) have grown from experience and understanding with the aim of making wines in a way that provide sensory delights that are truest to region and variety.