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Petaluma
Adelaide Hills, Australia1 wine3.8 avg
Australian winery founded 1976 by Brian and Ann Croser in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. A foundational name in modern Australian fine wine - Croser pioneered cool-climate Adelaide Hills viticulture and championed variety-matched-to-region: Riesling in Clare, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in Adelaide Hills, Cabernet/Merlot in Coonawarra. Croser left after the 2005 vintage; the brand passed through Lion Nathan and Accolade, and as of 2025 is part of Vinarchy.
Petaluma was founded in 1976 by Brian and Ann Croser in South Australia, with the winery itself built in the Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills) from 1978 onward. The corporate base sits in Woodside.
Brian Croser is a foundational figure in modern Australian fine wine. He pioneered Adelaide Hills viticulture - planting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on cool-climate sites that didn't yet have a serious wine industry around them - and co-founded the Oenotec consultancy with Tony Jordan, championing 'reductive winemaking' (stainless steel, temperature control) before it was the Australian norm.
The house philosophy is Distinguished Sites: variety matched to region. Riesling in Clare. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in Adelaide Hills. Cabernet and Merlot in Coonawarra. The Tiers vineyard - planted by Croser in the Piccadilly Valley in 1979 - is the apex of the Chardonnay programme.
Ownership history is complicated. A hostile takeover by Lion Nathan in 2001 brought the brand into corporate hands; Croser stayed on as figurehead through the 2005 vintage, then departed and founded Tapanappa in 2002 with Champagne Bollinger and the Cazes family of Lynch-Bages. Petaluma was rolled into Lion's Fine Wine Partners (2005-2008). Accolade Wines acquired FWP in 2016. In 2025 Accolade merged with Pernod Ricard's wine division to form Vinarchy, the current parent.
The current still range climbs from Lumos (entry, low-alcohol) through White Label (approachable mid-tier, drawing on broad Adelaide Hills) and Yellow Label (the 'Distinguished Sites' flagship, narrowed to Piccadilly Valley with full barrel ferment) to Tiers (single-vineyard apex from the 1979-planted Tiers vineyard, 9 months on lees in French barriques). The Croser sparkling label, established 1985, runs as a separate brand.
