French Island Vineyards produce all their wine from an island

Experiencing labour challenges, energy supply, export costs, deer pests, and daily visits from local koalas climbing about the property, brothers Peter and Andrew Hatton have made a living from what was once a family holiday farm.

Establishing their first vineyard in 1998 they expanded to a second in 2015 and continue to manage every part of production on the island, in-house.

From propagating vineyards at their on-site nursery, production, bottling and labelling, their wines are exported back to the mainland, travelling by ferry or barge and sold direct from their cellar door on the island.

"The cost of logistics and the barge cost is probably the biggest challenge," Andrew said.

While Pete said they look at the barge costs as relative to rates, which they don't have considering there's no local government on French Island.

"The thing with the cost of the barge is there's a flip side to that, there's a lot of savings being on French Island, we don't have any local government here so we don't have any costs associated there," Andrew said.

"We are all living the off-grid dream, with the cost of living going up everywhere else, our power stays the same, water stays the same, so there is a lot of savings and most people will have a veggie patch on the side."

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Head winemaker, Peter is passionate about the varieties they grow and with a unique environment on the island they have to take into consideration energy exertion involved in production and the varieties they grow.

"For example our pinot grigio requires a lot of cooling which then requires a lot of energy, so we've got a lot of limitations on how much we can do with our size," Andrew said.

Wet weather brought on by La Nina had also caused below average conditions for producers on the island, which made production difficult in recent years.

Peter said November in particular had been significantly hard for production, typically they average 1000 cases per year, however, the last three years production has been significantly lower so they're hoping for a drying out to boost production back up to their usually operations.

Producing, pinot noir, pinot grigio and shiraz, French Island Vineyards is open from November to April each year, they have to keep to the key tourism times to ensure staff availability for their best profit each year.

With buses of tourists coming from the mainland, Andrew said when visitors come to the island they usually don't want to leave.

"I think people appreciate the certain aspect of freedom here," he said.

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