About Us

The Monahan Estate vineyard is located in the beautiful, peaceful and picturesque Lovedale region of the Hunter Valley.

The vineyard is owned by Tracey Cooper (Vigneron, M.Mgmt) and her husband Frank Cooper (Clinical Nutritionist) whose primary focus is making quality wines for health-conscious wine consumers. The vineyard was purchased from the original founders Trish and John Graham who established this superb vineyard site with 15 acres of grape plantings, and these have now become mature vines that populate the vineyard today.

The vineyards’ soil is one of the most fertile in the Hunter Valley and capable of producing outstanding wines without the use of fertilizers. This extraordinarily fertile soil is estimated to be 15 metres deep and likened to some of the great French wine-making regions. The vineyard is carefully maintained and we utilize organic farming principals wherever possible.

The Monahan Estate winemaking process is very labour intensive using traditional wine-making techniques and the avoidance of unnecessary chemicals. We produce a maximum of just 300 cases for any grape vintage. The wines are designed to be affordable and represent outstanding value and quality. We produce low-preservative wines for those with sensitivity to sulphite preservatives (sulphur dioxide).

Our Cellar Door is located on our Vineyard where you can sample our current and past vintages. For those wine-lovers that are further away, we offer a special discounted ‘Mixed Dozen' so that you can try our different wines and decide which you like best. We really enjoy meeting our customers, but the reality is that much our wine is purchased via the internet or phone, and delivered direct to our customers.

In summary – Monahan Estate has one aim. That is to produce flavour-filled, low-yielding, high-quality fruit for making award-winning wines for health conscious wine consumers.

Our Vineyard

Monahan Estate is located at Lovedale in the heart of the Hunter Valley - one of Australia's great wine regions. The Monahan ‘logo’ includes a picture of a timber bridge, which highlights the 100 year old Gillies Bridge situated alongside the vineyard. It is the only remaining timber bridge of its type still standing and was rebuilt in 2002.

Our vineyard was previously a watermelon patch, and grapevines were planted in 1996 and 1997. Today the vineyard has fifteen acres (90 rows) devoted to Chardonnay, Semillon, Verdelho and Merlot grapes.

The vineyard is bordered on two sides by a deep creek that has a continuous water supply. There are huge Australian pine trees called ‘Casuarinas’ along the banks of the creek that shelters the vineyard from harsh winds. These wonderful trees harbour large colonies of magpies, affectionately called ‘the grape growers friend’ because of their ability to chase away other birds that eat the grapes.

Monahan Estate is able to produce the highest quality grapes from year to year because of three important factors: (a) The terroir enjoyed by our vineyard including the soil, sun, water quality, and airflows.  (b) The efficient rows and trellis designs and (c) the invaluable expertise of the Hunter Valley’s most experienced viticulturalist.

Of course, excellent grapes do not guarantee excellent wines. Monahan Estate is fortunate because our winemakers have an established reputation for producing excellent wines. They insist on the highest quality fruit with ideal Baume (sugar) levels. The winemaking process itself involves state-of-the-art equipment with stainless steel vats, temperature controlled equipment, and high-tech bottling equipment capable of bottle sterilisation, filling, capping and labelling – in a one-step process.