In the Hunter they have embraced solar power and many have adopted organic vineyard management, which shuns pesticides, herbicides and chemicals, and use biodynamic sprays that aid vines' photosynthesis and uptake of minerals and trace elements.

Under the leadership of its managing director-chief winemaker Mark Davidson, the Pokolbin-based Tamburlaine company now lays claim to be Australia's largest organic, vegan-friendly and preservative-free producer, owning and contracting about 450ha of Orange and Hunter vineyard.

Tamburlaine's Pokolbin winery treats all waste water so it can be recycled, while solid wastes become mulch and compost for the vines.

Elements of the system are a vertical composting unit, a continuous-flow vermiculture unit, windrow worm beds and a reduction in packaging.

A wine company based at Bradford Close, Kotara, and headed by Merewether couple Frances and Nicholas Crampton takes a different environmental path.

Their Fourth Wave Wine group has built a remarkable portfolio of Australian, New Zealand and other international wine brands over the past 11 years, boosting sales from 3000 dozen cases in 2009 to 650,000 in 2020.

For every dozen Tread Softly wine bottles sold the Cramptons plant an Australian native tree in the Yarra Yarra biodiversity corridor in WA. Since May they have planted 52,123 trees and shrubs. And, from the sales of the Little Giant brand wines, which carry an image of the small, stocky southern hairy-nose wombat, it supports WIRES (Wildlife, Information, Rescue and Education Service).

In appreciation of the Little Giant contributions, WIRES CEO Leanne Taylor recently told the heart-warming story of Ash, a tiny bare-nose wombat joey rescued in the middle of a bushfire from the pouch of his road-killed mother.

Ash, a name given him because he was covered in it when he was found on a road west of the Blue Mountains. His rescuer was a young woman called Zoe, who stopped her car, pulled the mother wombat off the road and, finding her dead, did a pouch check and found 1.08-kilogram Ash.

Zoe passed him on to the Blue Mountains WIRES team, who taught him how to drink two bottles of milk a day and later to feed on native grasses. Now an adult, he will soon be released back into the wild.

IN A SQUAT bottle suggestive of the wombats it helps, this 14.5%-alcohol Little Giant 2018 Barossa Shiraz is deep purple and displays fruitcake aromas and rich, ripe plum front-palate flavour. The middle palate has blackberry, licorice, cloves and cedary oak and a ferric tannin finish. At fourthwavewine.com.au and widely in bottle shops.

PRICE: $22.

DRINK WITH: lasagne.

AGEING: three years.

RATING: 4 stars (out of 6)

FROM the South Australian Riverland area named in honour of General Sir John Monash, the Farm Hand 2018 Chardonnay is vegan-friendly and from Grigoriou family's organic vines. It's straw-hued, orange blossom-scented and has white peach front-palate flavour. The middle palate shows melon, almond and creamy oak and a finish of lemony acid.

PRICE: $12.95.

DRINK WITH: quiche.

AGEING: two years.

RATING: 3.5 stars

THIS 10.8%-alcohol Tread Softly 2019 Pinot Noir has ruby hues, scents of violets and raspberry front-palate flavour. The middle-palate shows cherry, apple and spice and a finish of minty tannins. It and today's other Fourth Wave group wines and are at fourthwavewine.com.au and Dan Murphy's, BWS, Cellarbrations, IBA and other bottle shops.

PRICE: $22.

DRINK WITH: pizza.

AGEING: three years.

RATING: 4 stars

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