How it Began

We had a dream

Surveying soil types

Grafted rootlings

Training the vines

Mature vines

Our first vintage

Toby & Snow Barlow

Celebration

The Seven Sisters Vineyard

Getting our wine to your table or cellar takes some work! Our team has been with us for a while and continue to produce our wines as a labour of love.

Our Team

Leonie Stevens - Vineyard Manager
The quality of great wine always starts in the vineyard. Leonie has over 20 years viticultural experience. She established Seven Sisters Vineyard in 1996 and has since worked tirelessly to create well balanced vines as well as manage the Vineyard in harmony with the wider natural environment.

Her care provides the basis for the intense, complex flavours of Baddaginnie Run wines. Leonie is notorious in the family for having given personal names to almost all the vines - highlighting her intimacy with the vineyard and personal passion in helping nurture the wines of Baddaginnie Run.

Toby Barlow - Winemaker
Leading young Australian winemaker and family member, Toby Barlow develops Baddaginnie Run wines using a combination of traditional and contemporary techniques. His winemaking philosophy is ‘maximum attention, minimal intervention’, and his deft touch is distinctive, adding sophistication and elegance to our wines.

Toby did a Master of Oenology at University of Adelaide in South Australia, has been head winemaker with Mitchelton Winery at Nagambie where he has garnered numerous awards and is now about to work in the Barossa at St. Hallet's Winery. Married in 2005 in the hay shed at Rotherlea to Marion Howell, Toby was recently named as one of the 'Top 50 Winemakers to Watch' by his peers in the industry.

Kathy Waddington - Sales & Marketing
Kathy, an Arts graduate from the University of Melbourne manages Baddaginnie Run wine sales and marketing. Kathy’s passion for wine evolved during the period she ran her own fine-dining catering business and she also has extensive experience in both the fashion and wine industries. She has become a driving force in the business and is now as devoted to the wine as the family.

Snow Barlow & Winsome McCaughy - Directors
Snow’s childhood was spent ‘way out west’ on sheep stations in Qld and NSW around Moree, Mungindai, Garah and Gunnendaddy. He’s a plant physiologist and agricultural scientist with a PhD in Soil-Plant-Water relations from Oregon State University. His expertise lies in environmental plant biology, plant water use efficiency, viticulture and the impact of climate change on agricultural industries.

Snow is now Professor of Horticulture and Viticulture as well as the Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne. He has been extensively involved in national and international scientific research, has been a member of the Prime Ministers Science Engineering and Innovation Council, and is the recent past President of the Australian Federation of Scientific and Technological Societies. Snow liaises closely with Leonie on viticultural matters in the vineyard.

Winsome was born in the Rotherlea Valley and specialized in philosophy at the Univeristy of Melbourne, a discipline she’s applied to her many diverse roles. She was Lord Mayor of Melbourne in the late eighties and has since headed three national bodies as either chair or chief executive including Greening Australia, the Australia New Zealand Food Authority and the Australia Business Arts Foundation.

She is currently Senior Strategic Adviser (Partnerships) at the University of Melbourne.

Heather & Mike Greenaway - Business Partners
Winsome and Snow’s long term friends, Heather and Mike Greenaway are business partners in the 'Jane’s' sections of the Seven Sisters Vineyard. Mike grew up in Sydney, graduated as a doctor and is now a Diagnostic Radiologist in Connecticut.

Heather came from Ballan in Victoria, graduated as engineer at the University of Melbourne and later became a landscape architect in the USA.

Having now lived in America for 35 years, they love the precious connection Baddaginnie Run gives them with Australia.