Alberto Antonini and David Gleave have known each other since meeting in Montalcino in 1989. Both make their living from Italian wine - Alberto as a winemaker, consultant and grapegrower, David as the UK importer of some of Italy's top producers - yet they have often discussed over the years the great allure of Australia and Australian wine. The styles of wine, and the freedom to plant and develop whatever variety you believe is going to work in your piece of land, is of great appeal to them both. So when Mark Walpole took Alberto Antonini, whom he knew through their shared interest in Italian grape varieties in Australia, to visit the Greenstone site, Alberto wasted no time in ringing David in London. Alberto was struck by the quality of the soil and site. “I’m standing on a hill in Heathcote that would make a great vineyard,” he said to David. That was all it took to set the Greenstone Vineyard in motion. The initial excitement of the three original partners remains undiminished, and is, they feel, vindicated by the quality of the first wines to come off the vineyard.

Mark Walpole
Mark, a native of Victoria, studied farm management at Melbourne University. He has worked for Brown Brothers for 20 years, and today manages their 700 hectares of vineyard. He has his own vineyard in Beechworth, and is widely recognised as one of Australia’s leading viticulturalists.

Alberto Antonini
Alberto studied agronomy at the University of Florence, after which he did post graduate work in Bordeaux and University of California at Davis. Following graduation, he worked for Frescobaldi and then took up the post of technical director at Col d’Orcia in Montalcino in 1989. In 1994, he was appointed technical director at Antinori in San Casciano, a post he left at the end of 1996 to set up his own consultancy company, Matura. He also started Altos las Hormigas, an Argentinian winery, in 1996.

Alberto is consultant to numerous wineries in Italy (among which are Poggio al Tesoro, Cantine Leonardo and Castello di Bossi in Tuscany), Argentina (many wineries in addition to Altos las Hormigas), Spain, California (Seghesio) and Australia.

David Gleave M.W.
David Gleave was born and educated in Canada, but has lived in the U.K. since 1978. He has worked in the wine business since 1981, and became a Master of Wine in 1986. He is the managing director of Liberty Wines, a London-based importer of fine wines that he founded in 1997. He is also a director of the Delta Vineyard, a producer of premium Pinot Noir from Marlborough in New Zealand.