In the 1880s, Alfred Deakin, a former Prime Minister of Australia, encouraged the Chaffey Brothers, originally fromCalifornia, to bring their irrigation expertise to the vast inland valley of the Murray River in New South Wales. Purchased in 1967, Deakin Estate was named in honour of that visionary and planted to premium wine grapes which were sold as fruit until 1980, when a winery facility was built at Red Cliffs, near Mildura in the North West extreme of the Victoria region, just fifty miles or so from the state border with South Australia. With 865 acres under vine, the Deakin Estate range was launched, in 1994, in limited quantities.

Medium brick red in colour, the bouquet is of plumy jam and coffee, with hints of Morella cherries and dark chocolate. These aromas carry on to the palate with mature flavours of dark berry fruits and finish long and smooth.