Hand Picked Wines

Handpicked is part of DMG Fine Wines, a global wine business with its head office in Australia. Its roots go back over 50 years to China, and the vision of Ming Guang Dong, who built a successful broad-based business. His four children were educated in the UK, Australia or Singapore, and today they are all involved in the business, with William Dong at the helm. Having worked with what became Handpicked Wines, he bought the business with the aim of creating great wines from great regions under one label. Today it makes wines in Italy, Chile, France and Spain, but the main arm is Australia, where Handpicked has 33ha in the Yarra Valley, 18ha in the Mornington Peninsula and 12ha in the Barossa Valley. It secured the services of Gary Baldwin as executive chief winemaker, and constructed a winery at the company's flagship Capella Vineyard at Bittern, on the Mornington Peninsula, destined to become the hospitality base for the business. In November 2014, Peter Dillon was successfully headhunted to assist Gary Baldwin; Dillon has established his credentials as a winemaker of the highest quality over the past 13 years. JAMES HALLIDAY