Travis Tausend makes wine the way a sculptor works with stone: by removing everything that does not belong, trusting that what remains will be beautiful. Based in Hope Forest, one of the coolest and most distinct microclimates in South Australia's Adelaide Hills, Travis produces zero-zero wines from organically farmed fruit using only native yeasts, hand labor, and time.
A Life in Wine, Then a Life Making It
Travis opened Adelaide's first dedicated natural wine bar and enoteca before the pull of winemaking on his doorstep became too strong to resist. He trained through study, travel, and hands-on experience across Australia and abroad, absorbing what he needed before establishing his eponymous label. His vision of winemaking is as much artistic as technical. He sees emotion, intuition, and energy as the raw materials of a bottle, not just grape chemistry.
The Method: Nothing Added, Nothing Removed
All fruit is farmed organically. Grapes are hand-destemmed, pressed with a manual basket press, and fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. There are no pumpovers, no fining, no filtration, and zero added sulfur at any point. Travis makes do with hand-operated equipment, old barrels, buckets, and a stack of hoses, which is to say he makes do with exactly what the wine needs and nothing more. The Adelaide Hills' cool elevation and maritime influence give the wines a precision and freshness rare at this level of minimal intervention.
Honest Wines from Honest Ground
Travis farms with as little waste as possible and maintains an intrinsic connection to the land at Hope Forest. His portfolio, anchored by the Agori range of whites and reds from Adelaide Hills sites, demonstrates that the strictest no-addition approach need not produce wines of austerity. These are generous, detailed, and deeply personal expressions of one of Australia's most compelling natural wine voices.
