I first met Jane Richards at a wine tasting at the Australian Ambassador’s residence in India. She was one of the South Australian wine producers invited to showcase their wines to press and guests. That’s where my sister and I met her – taking photos of everyone, wanting to talk to everyone, swapping contacts. Then COVID hit and we all went home to our respective lives.
A few years later I was moving to Adelaide and two days before I got on the plane, I messaged Jane to say I was coming. She asked who was picking me up from the airport. I said no one. She said that was not going to happen. She picked me up, got me a SIM card, got me a bus card, introduced me to people in fashion. That’s Jane Richards. That’s also Eight at the Gate.
Jane and her sister Claire grew up near the Limestone Coast – one of five kids, always around country. Their father did irrigation work for the wine regions opening up across South Australia in the eighties: Coonawarra, Padthaway. He got paid partly in dollars and partly in a very good wine cellar. Five kids in the house, dinner parties on weekends, whatever was left in the glasses. That was the wine education.
Claire went to Roseworthy – now Adelaide University – one of the best viticulture and winemaking schools in the Southern Hemisphere. Jane liked the drinking side more. In 2002, Jane was living in the US, Claire was consulting for wineries around Australia, and together they decided to buy land on the Limestone Coast and be grape growers. Not winemakers – just grow the fruit and sell it to wine companies. The numbers made sense on paper.
They started making their own wine in 2005, just for friends and family to drink. Their first bottled product with the Eight at the Gate name went out in 2017 – nearly fifteen years after they bought the land.
The name took a long time. They wanted something real. Jane is clear about this: there are too many Australian wine labels owned by large corporates with no actual people behind them. They wanted a name that meant something. Two sisters. Four kids each. Close in age, all running together. Always eight at the gate. The name came out of an evening with friends and a few bottles of wine, as these things do.
I went to visit the vineyard in Coonawarra with Jane – and she took me to Naracoorte Caves, which sit in the Wrattonbully wine region right next door. The caves are World Heritage listed and show you what’s underneath the vineyards: ancient cave systems, fossils, a limestone aquifer so close to the surface you can knock a fence post into the ground and watch it disappear into a cavern below. Jane mentioned that one of their own tractors fell into a cave on their property once. The vines sunk. They had to stop, get the cave people in to assess it. Secretly hoping it was a significant cavern, she says, because that would be really cool. That’s the land Eight at the Gate is rooted in.
The terroir – and Jane is upfront about hating wine language that makes people feel excluded – the terroir of the Limestone Coast is exceptional for Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris. It’s a cool climate region. The diurnal shift – the gap between daytime and nighttime temperatures – is significant. 35 degrees during the day, 5 degrees at night. That shift slows the sugar ripening process and extends the growing season, which is what gives the fruit its depth of flavour. The grapes get flavor ripe and sugar ripe at the same time, which means you don’t have to interfere with the wine much. Jane’s description of their winemaking philosophy: “We’re lazy. We don’t wanna add anything.”
Yield matters too. Coonawarra Cabernet grows at around 7 tonnes per hectare. A warmer region grows 25 tonnes at the same cost. That gap explains the price. Their entry-level sits at $30 AUD retail. They’re not apologising.
Eight at the Gate now sells into India – Pinot Gris and a Cabernet Shiraz blend – in Delhi, Gurgaon, and Bengaluru. Jane has been to India three times and visited the Nashik wine region. The Cabernet Shiraz blend came about in an interesting way: some of their fruit was going to Penfolds for Bin 389. When they decided to make their own wine, Jane looked at the percentage of Cabernet to Shiraz in that blend and used it as a starting point. They sell it for considerably less than $100 a bottle.
On the direct-to-consumer side: Commerce7 for the wine club, Mailchimp for updates, and an app called Bonjoro that sends Jane an alert when a new order comes in. She records a 30-second video – might be in the vineyard, might be at the grocery store – to say thank you. “Thank you. We see you.” The repeat customer rate from that is not accidental.
One Melbourne customer still rings Jane to place orders. Has all her details saved. “Jane, it’s Michelle. I need some wine. Help me.”
Watch & listen to the full episode on YouTube & Spotify.
Eight at the Gate Wines: eightatthegate.com.au
Instagram: instagram.com/eightatthegate
Facebook: facebook.com/eightatthegate
LinkedIn (brand): Eight at the Gate on LinkedIn
Jane Richards on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/janerichards8888
TikTok: tiktok.com/@eightatthegate
YouTube: Eight at the Gate on YouTube
Follow Naina on Instagram: @naina
Naina’s website: naina.co
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1 comment
Naina, very lucid & comprehensively written. Congrats.
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