The Bob Oatley Story

Robert "Bob" Oatley is a proud and passionate third-generation Australian who has built a diverse family business that ranges from vineyards, wineries and cattle stations, to thoroughbred horses and luxury tourism at Hamilton Island on Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef. Each of these ventures reflect Bob’s passion for bringing to the world the best of things Australian.

Born and bred near Sydney’s harbour, sailing became part of Bob’s life at an early age, and his Wild Oats XI racing super-maxi yacht holds a record four consecutive wins as well as course time record in the treacherous Sydney-to-Hobart race. His wines have topped Australian and American sales, been found on the world’s best wine lists and awarded some of the highest possible international accolades.

“Bob’s a great believer in what is possible,” says his long-standing friend and colleague Chris Hancock, “and a great believer in the people around him. He gives people strength, individuality and presence. He turns ordinary people into extraordinary people. Just being in his presence makes you a different person. It’s quite amazing."

Bob’s first international trade success was during the 1960s with Papua New Guinea’s coffee and cocoa industry — he exported the beans around the world. He was later recognized by Queen Elizabeth II and awarded the British Empire Medal for his contribution to the country’s economy.

After his great success with coffee, Bob decided to take what he learnt about agriculture, commodity trading in expanding international markets and apply his knowledge to one of his great passions: fine wine. In transitioning from coffee trading to the emerging Australian wine industry, Bob developed a mantra about quality and taste. He recognised that wine, to the tastes of many, lacked a flavour connection to its consumer. “Bob would make these lip-smacking noises,” says Chris Hancock, a former Grange winemaker who joined Bob in the 1970’s. “He’d say, ‘Chris, that’s what it has to taste like – like you want some more.’”

Bob’s first wines were made in the 1970s at Rosemount Estate in Australia’s Hunter Valley and today his winemaking home is Mudgee, 162 miles north west of Sydney, a region of sunshine, terrific soils and fascinating winemaking history –  home of Australian chardonnay, site of the earliest known plantings of the variety.

Almost overnight, Bob Oatley’s wines became ‘The Taste of Australia,’ and the style that defined a continent. With his Chardonnay in Europe and followed by his Shiraz in the US, Bob Oatley created the original ‘Aussie Style’ and an international following for Australian wine. By 1983, boosted by a Double Gold Medal at the 1982 London International Wine & Spirit Competition, all of England was talking about – and drinking – Rosemount Chardonnay. Oz Clarke, writing in New Classic Wines of the World said “I remember when Rosemount Show Reserve 1980 hit the British shops, with its honeyed spice, its brazil nuts cream, its whiff of toasty smoke and an almost syrupy texture. Chardonnay was never going to be the same again.”

In 1986, Rosemount was awarded Winemaker of the Year at the IWSC and in 1999 became the first Australian winery to win Winery of the Year at the San Francisco International Wine Competition. More recently, before his handing over of Rosemount Estate, Oatley won Australia’s most prestigious wine award, the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy, in 2002.

Four decades after the success of Rosemount, Bob Oatley and his family are again playing a key role in setting a new direction for Australian wine. Never one to rest on his laurels, in 2006 and at the age of nearly 80, Bob decided it was time to redefine perceptions about the essence of Australian wine. Still focused on creating wines with flavours that invite a second glass, Robert Oatley Vineyards reinterprets the Aussie Style with the subtlety required for today’s culinary fare. The hallmarks are appealing texture, moderate alcohol, and purity of flavour. But one thing never changes – Bob Oatley’s requirement that the wine always tastes “like you want some more."

Today, Bob’s winemaking home is Mudgee, 261 km north-west of Sydney, a region of sunshine, ancient red-brown earths and a rich winemaking history. His wines are produced from a diverse set of family-owned vineyards spread throughout the Mudgee region as well as grapes grown for the family from vineyards as far away as Margaret River and Pemberton, Western Australia.

Bob’s eldest son, Sandy, who was in high school when the family planted the first Rosemount vineyards, is mentoring his children and other members of the next Oatley generation. Working side by side with Sandy, as Sandy did with Bob, the third generation is learning the Oatley way in wine and business.

From the family vineyards in Mudgee comes a wine style reflecting old world wine influences as well as contemporary international tastes. It’s the beginning of a second Australian wine renaissance grounded in a sense of place and tradition, led by the vision of Australia’s first wine statesman.

Robert Oatley Vineyards builds on Bob Oatley’s forty years of experience in crafting market leading Australian wines that people enjoy drinking - and taking them to the world.