OUR STORY
Living Roots is a winery in both the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York and the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia.
Though Living Roots was founded in 2016, our legacy began six generations back with Thomas Hardy, Seb’s great-great-great grandfather. In 1850, at the age of 20, Thomas immigrated to the new British colony, Australia. He soon planted the Hardy family’s first grapes and jumpstarted 160+ years of family winemaking.
Seb grew up in his dad’s vineyards, particularly at K1, the first vineyard in the Kuitpo subregion of the Adelaide Hills. After high school, Seb worked several vintages in Australia and across Europe, and got a degree in Viticulture and Oenology in Adelaide, with an exchange at UC Davis.
On the other side of the world, Colleen grew up in Rochester, New York [spending time around the Finger Lakes region], before getting a degree in marketing. After a few years in corporate America, she began to explore the world of wine and landed a cellar hand position for the 2014 vintage at Hardy’s Tintara Winery.
It was during that 2014 harvest in McLaren Vale that we first met. We each worked in different aspects of the wine industry, and in 2016, we established Living Roots. That was the first year that we split time between South Australia and New York, doing two harvests so we could make a wide range of wines, suiting the varieties and styles to the differing climates.
We source grapes from different vineyards and growers, including from both of our families, and some wines are made year-to-year while others are one-offs. Our approach is careful, but minimal input winemaking. In the Finger Lakes, our focus is on rich whites and sparklings, and in South Australia, it’s vibrant, medium-bodied reds.
We opened the Living Roots urban winery and tasting room in Rochester, New York in 2017. In 2020, a seasonal pop-up on our family’s Shale Creek Vineyard overlooking Keuka Lake began, with construction underway on a larger winery and tasting room. And in 2021, we set up a cellar door with tastings by appointment in Kuitpo, where our small Aussie winery is. Stay tuned for what’s next!
Cheers, Seb + Col