We could start the Atlas story in any number of places. At one of Adam Barton’s formative winemaking jobs, in McLaren Vale, Coonawarra, the Barossa, Western Australia, the South of France or California’s Central Coast. Before that, at the University of Adelaide, where he studied oenology. Or in the Hunter Valley, where he first discovered the magic of wine, in a glass of 1965 Lindemans Hunter River Burgundy. 

We could go back even earlier, to Amy Lane’s childhood in the South Australian Mid North, on the arid, sandy paddocks that have been farmed by her family for generations.

But where Atlas began in earnest is on a 26-acre block of land, a vineyard planted with Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, on the eastern slopes of the Clare Valley. The year was 2007. Adam and Amy made an investment in Clare, an investment in their future, and Atlas Wines was born. 

Vineyards, fruit, provenance

Their vision for Atlas was pretty simple: to produce great wine from the highest-quality fruit available, not just from the Atlas estate vineyard but from vineyards with exceptional provenance in the surrounding regions. In searching out these vineyards, Adam has come to know intimately the complexity and diversity of the Clare Valley, and how the unique characteristics of different sites – geology, soil, groundwater, climate and weather, aspect, slope and more – produce fruit with unique qualities. It’s these qualities that he has sought to express through the wines he has made.