BART VAN OLPHEN - CHALMERS WINE

A natural green thumb from childhood, Bart studied agriculture in his native Holland before turning his focus to vines and wine, moving to Germany to study and work in the Pfalz. After graduating he worked in Michigan, USA before returning to Willunga in McLaren Vale South Australia, where he had visited as an exchange student at age 18, to work one vintage.  He landed a seasonal position at Tinlins with Warren Randall and Steve Pannell and ended up staying there for 8 years, during which time he also did vintages in Burgundy and Priorat.  

In 2011 Bart moved to Mildura, taking up a position at the Chalmers Merbein Vineyard and getting back to viticulture again which he hadn’t done since Germany. Inspired by the diverse nursery block at Merbein Bart helped instigate the #bucketwine and Chalmers Project adventures making super small batch vinifications from rare and interesting varieties.From this experimental winemaking beginning, Chalmers has now developed a 100 tonne winery at the site with Bart as the winemaker for the majority of the Chalmers and Montevecchio wines as well as many more small batch project wines since 2017

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO WORK WITH TAP.?

The Chalmers family have always been focused on sustainability so extending that to the way our wine is packaged just made sense. Also, stylistically the Montevecchio wines have always been aimed at that everyday, by the glass, wine for the people vibe so the TAP. wines setup is a great match for that ethos too. Lately having the opportunity to put Small Batch Limited Edition wines into keg exclusively for TAP. wines has been super cool. It allows us to keep having fun and trying new things - which is something that keeps me excited about making wine.