Winemaker: Owen Littlejohns

The short version

I've been making my own wine since 2022, alongside working as a vineyard manager, growing grapes and going deep on regenerative and organic viticulture: soil health, soft pruning, dry farming. So I guess that makes me a vine guy and a wine guy.

How I got here

I jumped into viticulture and winemaking straight out of high school. I loved the idea of farming and living on the land. At 18, my first trip to Europe took me to a chateau in the Loire Valley to help out in the vineyard, and that short stint settled it: I was going to make wine for a living.

From there I studied winemaking and viticulture, then spent a few years vintage hopping: North Canterbury in New Zealand for Pinot and Chardonnay, Provence for Rosé, Alsace for Riesling, and the Rhône Valley for Syrah, Marsanne and Viognier. Back in Australia, I worked for M. Chapoutier in Heathcote, managing a small block of dry-farmed organic shiraz. That was the moment I decided viticulture, not just winemaking, was the direction I wanted to follow.

I landed in the Yarra Valley in 2019, working as vineyard manager for Mac Forbes Wines. In that seven years with Mac, I've planted new vineyards there, including high-density, dry-farmed blocks built around regenerative and organic practices. Growing grapes that actually express where they're from is what I'm genuinely passionate about.

A different story

Vine Guy Wine Guy is about something else: exploration. Different grape varieties, different techniques, pushing at the edges of what I know. I started making my own wine for fun, and fun is still what it's for. I'm drawn to cool-climate wines, but what I love most is finding something delicate and moreish.

I make it low intervention: wild fermentation, wild malolactic, a hands-off approach. That means every year's wine is a bit different, and I have less control over how it turns out than I would doing it by the book. But that unpredictability is exactly what makes it exciting.

Why the dumb name

Can you guess what "Vine Guy Wine Guy" is referencing? No? Read on.

I tried all sorts before landing on it: my own name, my initials, something pulled from mythology. Nothing felt right. So I went with what my Instagram handle already was. It's a callback to the TV series How I Met Your Mother, where Barney can't do anything himself (changing a lightbulb, fixing the TV) and just says "I've got a guy for that" for every job. I do both the growing as a vineyard manager and also the making, so I'm both a vine guy and a wine guy.

It's a dumb reference, but it sums me up well because I do like doing both.