Spring Seed Wines are made from grapes lovingly grown in the Bosworth family’s organic vineyards, located in the premium wine region of McLaren Vale, South Australia.

The vineyards were established in the early 1970s by Peter and Anthea Bosworth, and are now owned and run by their son Joch (and partner Louise Hemsley-Smith), who began the conversion to organic viticulture in 1995.

The vines are fully certified ‘A’ grade organic by Australian Certified Organic (ACO P/L ), a process that takes four years and involves yearly audits and random sampling of produce. Joch Bosworth also makes Battle of Bosworth wines using grapes from our organically grown and certified vineyards, please visit here.

Spring Seed

Spring Seed Wine Co produces the Forget-me-not Sauvignon Blanc Semillon, Poppy Pinot Grigio, Four O’clock Chardonnay, Sweet Pea Moscato and the Morning bride Rosé. We produce three red wines – the Aster Pinot Noir, the Sweet William Cabernet Sauvignon and the Scarlet Runner Shiraz. All of these wines are made using grapes from our organically certified vineyard. The Spring Seed Wine labels are unashamedly inspired by vintage flower seed packets created at the turn of the last century. The colour, clarity and beauty of the original seed packets are quite remarkable.

We chose three different flower images to adorn each one of our McLaren Vale wines (apart from the sparkling wines) simply because they are quite lovely. The old-fashioned look of the seed packets (and our labels), and the painstaking attention to detail involved in the creation of the original artwork resonates clearly in the traditional, meticulous practises we employ in both vineyard and winemaking.

The People

Joch Bosworth grew up amongst the vines of the family’s McLaren Vale vineyard. His keen interest in fishing meant considerable time spent in the nearby waters of the Gulf St Vincent but this was balanced by hard work at home; the young Bosworth was also instrumental in helping his father establish the family vineyards.

Study at Charles Sturt University (Wagga Wagga) yielded an Associate Diploma in Viticulture (1988-1990) and was followed by a world wine tour which took in harvest at Mondavi in the Napa in California and Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon.

A three-year stint as both viticulturist and winemaker at a small Victorian winery (Goonawarra) preceded Joch’s return to the vineyard to take over from father Peter in 1994.

Louise landed in Australia on St Valentine’s Day 14th February 1997 fresh from the UK, with a personal tradition of lengthy and largely unimpressive university study and long vacation travel. She worked on her cousin’s vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, but found the morning temperatures during grape picking in the bracing Hills Autumn a bit too reminiscent of home, so moved down to McLaren Vale.

Night study for a Masters in Marketing at the University of South Australia gave her time to make her early mistakes in wine marketing and sales at various McLaren Vale wineries (Tatachilla Winery, d’Arenberg and Penny’s Hill) during the day. Officially retiring from working for ‘the man’ in 2005 she went back to the Bosworth family vineyards to work for the Man – Joch Bosworth – where she took over all aspects of sales, marketing, administration etc. of their wine labels, as well as a sideline of looking after the next generation of Bosworths, Celia (vintage 2004) and Peggy (vintage 2007).

McLaren Vale

McLaren Vale is located approximately 37 km south of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and is almost unique within Australia in being situated to close to the sea (and some of the best beaches in the country). McLaren Vale was one of the earliest regions to be planted to vines in South Australia, with first recorded plantings in 1838 by John Reynell in Reynella, slightly to the north of the McLaren Vale town ship.

McLaren Vale has what is best described as a Mediterranean climate; winter dominant rainfall, low relative humidity and high relative evaporation. Rain during vintage and frosts in spring are both rare. Our vines benefit from cooling gully winds in summer and the proximity of the ocean moderates winter temperatures and sea breezes help relieve hot summer afternoons. McLaren Vale is rightly considered one of the most consistent premium wine growing regions in Australia.

For more information on the region, please see the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association website.