Brisbane Winery Tour

Sirromet Wines was founded in 2000 by the Morris family on 560 hectares of volcanic slopes at Mount Cotton, an hour southeast of Brisbane's CBD.

The estate operates Queensland's largest single-site winery, processing fruit from both its own hillside vineyards and contracted growers across the Granite Belt, a high-altitude wine region straddling the Great Dividing Range 220 kilometres inland. The cellar door occupies a Tuscan-inspired pavilion designed by Brisbane architect Lindsay Clare, completed in 2006, with barrel halls carved into the hillside to maintain stable temperatures year-round without mechanical refrigeration. The facility produces 180,000 cases annually across 45 wine styles, focusing on cool-climate varietals suited to Queensland's elevation pockets.

Brisbane's proximity to three distinct wine regions—Mount Cotton's volcanic soils, Tamborine Mountain's basalt plateau, and the Granite Belt's decomposed granite at 800 metres elevation—has made the city a hub for subtropical viticulture research. Sirromet's vineyard blocks test rootstock clones originally developed for Mediterranean climates, adapting them to Queensland's summer humidity and occasional cyclonic rainfall. The winery's 2010 expansion added a 500-seat restaurant and events terrace overlooking Lake Wyaralong, a reservoir completed in 2011 that now moderates afternoon temperatures across the vineyard rows. Tamborine Mountain, 70 kilometres south, supports smaller boutique producers on decomposed basalt left by shield volcanoes active three million years ago. Those soils retain moisture through dry winters, allowing dry-farmed Verdelho and Chardonnay plantings without irrigation infrastructure.

The Granite Belt, Queensland's oldest declared wine region, was planted in the 1960s by Italian immigrants who recognised the elevation's frost patterns and diurnal temperature swings. That region now supplies 40 percent of Queensland's commercial grape tonnage, with Sirromet acting as the primary contract winemaker for smaller growers. Brisbane winery tour operators connect these sites through half-day and full-day itineraries, pairing cellar door tastings with meals designed around each estate's flagship releases. Sirromet's standard tasting fee grants access to six current-vintage wines, with the option to upgrade to reserve-tier Signature Series bottlings aged in French oak puncheons. The winery maintains tasting room hours six days a week, closing only on public holidays and annual vintage shutdowns in late February when crush operations monopolise tank space.