At A Glance
- **Founded:** 1928
- **Location:** Riverina, New South Wales (primary); Yarra Valley, Victoria (secondary)
- **Grapes:** Semillon (botrytis), Chardonnay
- **Listed wine:** Noble One Botrytis Semillon
- **Style:** Late-harvest dessert wine; estate Chardonnay
- **Bottle format:** Noble One released in 375ml half-bottles
The Producer
Vittorio and Giuseppina De Bortoli arrived from Italy and planted their first vines in the Riverina in 1928. What they built became one of Australia's largest family-owned wineries, now in the hands of the third generation. The range runs from everyday table wine to Noble One Botrytis Semillon, a late-harvest dessert wine from Semillon grown in the warm Riverina flatlands and shaped by the morning mists that roll off the Murrumbidgee River. That wine is the reason the name De Bortoli travels internationally.
The family also operates in the cooler Yarra Valley in Victoria, where a separate estate produces Chardonnay and other table wines under the Yarra Valley label. Two climates, two very different wine types, and a single family holding them together across nearly a century.
Place
The Riverina sits in the interior of New South Wales, far from any coast, with long hot summers and low annual rainfall. The Murrumbidgee River provides irrigation and, crucially, the morning mists that settle over the vines in autumn. Those mists are what make Noble One possible: the humidity encourages Botrytis cinerea, the fungal infection that shrivels the Semillon grapes, concentrates their sugars and acids, and transforms them into something amber and thick rather than fresh and dry. Without the mist cycle and the warmth that follows to dry the berries, the conditions for noble rot do not form reliably.
The Yarra Valley works on different logic entirely. It is a cool-climate region southeast of Melbourne in Victoria, with higher elevation, lower temperatures, and longer ripening seasons that produce tighter, more acid-driven table wines. The Estate Vineyard Chardonnay comes from this address, and the contrast with Noble One covers the breadth of what De Bortoli grows.
Soil And Site
The Riverina is flat agricultural country on alluvial soils, well-suited to high-volume viticulture. The specific parcel conditions for Noble One are not documented in detail beyond the river proximity and the mist patterns that the Murrumbidgee generates in autumn. In the Yarra Valley, the Estate Vineyard Chardonnay site sits at elevation in the upper valley, where volcanic and sedimentary soils give the fruit its citrus and stone-fruit character alongside a mineral straw note that carries into the glass.
Story
The founding generation planted vines and sold wine in bulk, as almost every Riverina producer did. The business grew through the second generation without a defining single wine. That changed in the early 1980s when Darren De Bortoli, studying winemaking at Roseworthy College in South Australia, made a botrytis-affected Semillon from Riverina fruit and put it on the market under the label 'Sauternes,' the name Australian producers had borrowed from the famous Bordeaux appellation for decades.
In 1984, that wine won Best Botrytis Wine at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London, the kind of result that forces international buyers to pay attention. Then the label changed. In 1990, Australia signed a bilateral trade agreement with the European Economic Community requiring Australian producers to phase out European geographic names from their labels. 'Sauternes' was out. The wine had to earn its place under a new name, Noble One, chosen after the noble rot at its centre. Winning a major international award under one name and rebuilding that recognition under another tested what the wine actually was. It held.
Vineyards And Cellar
Noble One starts in the Riverina vineyard when botrytis infection spreads across the Semillon grapes in autumn. The fungus removes water from the berry, which raises the concentration of sugar, glycerol, and the particular organic compounds that produce the grilled and smoky aromas in the finished wine. Harvest is hand-selected to capture the right level of infection. The juice ferments slowly with the high sugar load, and the wine is aged before bottling. Released in 375ml half-bottles, the format that suits the richness of a dessert wine served by the glass.
The Yarra Valley Estate Vineyard Chardonnay follows a different path: cooler growing temperatures slow the ripening season, allowing the fruit to develop complexity before the sugars climb too high. The palate stays bright, which points to a winemaking approach that favours freshness over heavy oak or extended lees contact.
Wines
Noble One Botrytis Semillon is the wine De Bortoli is known for internationally. It is a late-harvest dessert wine, golden in youth and amber as it ages. The botrytis infection gives it unusual aromatic density: grilled nectarine, campfire smoke, and a buttered cashew richness sit alongside each other in the same pour. The acidity keeps the sweetness in check so the wine does not finish sticky. It deepens over years in bottle, the aromas intensifying and the palate growing richer and more layered as it moves from gold to amber.
The Yarra Valley Estate Vineyard Chardonnay sits at the opposite end of the range, a dry white table wine from Victoria. Aromas of citrus, stone fruit, straw, and a faint almond note from bottle age open into a palate described as balanced and bright. It is an accessible estate-level Chardonnay, meant for the table rather than the cellar.
The broader De Bortoli range covers multiple tiers across Riverina, Yarra Valley, and Rutherglen, but Noble One and the Estate Chardonnay are the two bottles with sufficient sourced detail to write about directly.
In The Glass
Noble One opens with deep amber colour and a complex aromatic lift: grilled nectarine and campfire smoke rise first, followed by the roasted, buttery note of concentrated cashew. In the mouth, the wine is thick, the glycerol from botrytis coating the palate with viscosity. The sweetness is real but the acidity cuts through and prevents it from feeling heavy. The finish is long. Young bottles sit in golden amber with clean, forward fruit; older vintages shift to deeper amber, the aromas intensify, and the palate adds more layered richness without losing its line.
The Estate Vineyard Chardonnay reads differently in every way: pale, fresh, citrus and stone fruit on the nose with the straw and almond that come from a little bottle age. The palate is bright and balanced, built for food rather than contemplation.
A Bottle To Understand It
Noble One Botrytis Semillon 375ml is the bottle that earns De Bortoli its international reputation and gives the clearest picture of what the Riverina can produce when conditions align. A half-bottle is the right format: dessert wine is best in smaller pours, and 375ml is enough to share properly at the end of a meal. The wine is amber, thick, and aromatic, with grilled nectarine, campfire smoke, and buttered cashew on the nose and a concentrated, viscous palate cut by enough acidity to stay lively. It is sweet without being cloying. Start with a current vintage to understand the wine at its most vibrant, or seek out an older bottle to see how the aromas intensify and the palate deepens over time.
Anecdote
In the early 1980s, Darren De Bortoli made a botrytis-affected Semillon from Riverina fruit and put it on the Australian market labelled 'Sauternes,' the name Australian producers had borrowed from the Bordeaux appellation for generations without objection. The wine entered the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London in 1984 and won Best Botrytis Wine. Two years later it was in Decanter, and the name De Bortoli was circulating in the kind of wine press that reaches buyers who had never heard of the Riverina. Then, in 1990, Australia signed a bilateral trade agreement with the European Economic Community requiring Australian producers to remove European geographic names from their labels. 'Sauternes' had to go. The wine was renamed Noble One, after the Botrytis cinerea at its centre, and every bottle since has carried that name instead of the French appellation it originally wore. A wine that had just found its international audience had to find it again, under a different label, with no borrowed geography to lean on.
Final Word
De Bortoli is a family business that has lasted nearly a century in Australian wine by building across regions rather than concentrating on a single appellation. Noble One remains its most argued bottle: a dessert wine that won its first major award under a borrowed name, lost that name to a trade agreement, and rebuilt its reputation under its own. The Yarra Valley Chardonnay shows the family's reach into cooler-climate viticulture. Between the two, the range covers more of Australian wine than a single-address producer ever could.