Winemaker Peter Taylor, and private businessman Michael de la Haye, had been friends for years, when in 1996, they and their families first got together to make some "fun" wine. It was a pretty good drop, and encouraged the friends to take the plunge and buy an old, dry grown, 40 acre Barossa vineyard in 1998.

Peter had first become interested in Marananga, a small sub-region of the Barossa Valley just west of Tanunda, in his days as senior red winemaker for Penfolds. "Every year I visited vineyards during vintage; The Shiraz from this area seemed to have some special qualities which I enjoyed; richness coupled with style."

The opportunity for the families to buy this vineyard was a lucky one; although it had many small patches of prime Shiraz, it was also planted with a number of less attractive varieties, which fortunately deterred investors looking for a quick return. "For us it was perfect as it suited our longer term plans and gave us a chance to grow at a pace we could handle," Michael adds. The families have recently completed a massive revamp of the vineyard, including re-trellising, re-planting, and grafting on the existing dry grown vines. This has achieved a varietal mix which is predominantly Shiraz, with an exciting assortment of other reds including Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Tempranillo.

Well known for his involvement in producing Penfold's Grange and many other Aussie icon wines, Peter relishes the opportunity to hand craft his own wines from a single fruit source. Reviews on vintages to date consistently comment on Peter's ability to create an elegant style of wine whilst retaining the richness and concentration for which the Barossa is famous.

Vintage is a family affair, hectic and short with sons, daughters and wives involved. The fruit is crushed into open fermenters and hand plunged before being aged in American and French oak.

The combination of skills which Peter and Michael bring to Hare's Chase is providing a winning formula with the wines achieving consistently high rankings and the label being marketed in 7 countries.