Leko

LEKO Wine is the Adelaide Hills sister brand to Koerner Wine.

The name LEKO represents ‘Lenswood’ and ‘Koerner’ while also giving a serendipitous nod to Maddy’s maiden name,

‘Lehmann’ and wine making heritage.

In 2017 Damon and his wife Maddy bought a property in Lenswood. The property had a small cottage which at the time was hardly liveable, a fallow paddock and an old run down equipment shed. The pair had the vision to turn the cottage into their family home, the paddock into a serious pinot, chardonnay and gamay vineyard and the shed would become the central wine- making facility for Koerner and LEKO.

The winery was the first upgrade and saw an extension to the structure which created an indoor crush pad, with room for many small fermenters and an insulated hall for barrel stillage and stock holdings. It improved the level of control of their winemaking and offered more room for greater fruit intake and the first vintages of LEKO.

While the focus of LEKO is the new family vineyard, it will still be a few years until the fruit is at a level which aligns with the de- sired quality of the LEKO brand. Currently Maddy and Damon are working with select vineyards in Piccadilly and Lenswood. Chardonnay and lighter style reds such as Pinot Noir and Merlot are their main game.

The wines are made in a fairly hands off fashion, some whole bunch pressing into large format Slavonian oak for wild ferment on the whites and a mix of whole bunch/carbonic work along with the use of old slovonian oak puncheons and ceramic eggs on the reds. The wines are elegant expressions and embody a pursuit of finesse.