Pimpernel Vineyards

Lilydale-based cardiologist Mark Horrigan’s love affair with wine started long before he had heard about either the Yarra Valley or his family’s links, centuries ago, to Condrieu, France. He is a direct descendant of the Chapuis family, his ultimate ancestors buried in the Church of Saint-Étienne in 1377. In a cosmopolitan twist, his father came from a Welsh mining village, but made his way to university and found many things to enjoy, not the least wine. When the family moved to Australia in 1959, wine remained part of everyday life and, as Mark grew up in the ’70s, the obsession passed from father to son. In 2001 he and wife Fiona purchased a property in the Yarra Valley on which they have built a (second) house, planted a vineyard, and erected a capacious winery designed by WA architect Peter Moran. In the course of doing so they became good friends of near-neighbour the late Dr Bailey Carrodus; some of the delphic labelling of Pimpernel’s wines is pure Carrodus. Exports to Japan. -JAMES HALLIDAY