Stone is one of Australia’s most celebrated chefs, now turned Adelaide Hills winemaker with the launch of his Wines by Matt Stone range.
Australian chef-turned-winemaker Matt Stone, who has launched his collection of Adelaide Hills wines, Wines by Matt Stone. Photo / Kenny Smith Shoots
He began his career in Margaret River in his native Western Australia, with a chef’s apprenticeship at acclaimed winery Leeuwin Estate. He went on to work in some of Perth’s top restaurants, then Victoria’s Melbourne and Yarra Valley, before making a move to New South Wales’ Northern Rivers.
“I was [in the Yarra Valley] for five years at Oak Ridge Wines, so I lived in Fitzroy [in central Melbourne] and I did the journey out to the valley and back each day, which is where I started to make wines,” Stone says.
“I just made a collaborative wine to start off with, then in 2018 I made my first solo wine, which won Best Wine from the Drink Easy Awards, which was really cool.”
Stone planned to come to Adelaide in 2024 for his first vintage but family matters meant he needed to spend time back in Perth. He spent the next year readying his businesses for the possibility he would no longer be there on a day-to-day basis, and finally headed for the Hills in January 2025. He and Sapwell-Stone, who is a celebrated chef in her own right, made the move more permanent later that year, with Stone trading restaurants for winemaking.
“Adelaide’s awesome,” Stone says.
“The restaurants are amazing; the farmers’ market on Sunday morning, sensational. I do most of my food shopping there each week.
“The shift from being a cook to being a winemaker – on a Sunday morning I can go stroll around the market, instead of rushing to set up for lunch service on a Sunday. That shift is really nice.
“I felt a bit [of] impostor syndrome at the start, I felt odd, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough in the transition just to being like ‘I can have the morning to cruise around the market and just potter away in the kitchen and cook’. It’s really nice to be able to do that.”
Chef Alanna Sapwell-Stone who opened her acclaimed Adelaide restaurant, Esmay, in November.
Sapwell-Stone, meanwhile, is finding success through her acclaimed restaurant, Esmay.
After closing her Brisbane restaurant, Arc Dining, in 2020 she started Esmay as a pop-up, taking it around the country, refining the concept as she went. Operating in diverse venues, from Perth’s Ritz-Carlton to heritage pubs in Brisbane, she never quite made it to South Australia.
When she came to Adelaide with Stone for that first vintage, she instantly fell in love. The city, she told Broadsheet in August last year, “felt like home to us instantly”.
She told Stone that if he wanted to make the move permanently, she would need to find a way to start “the exact restaurant that I want to have”. That restaurant was Esmay, which is now a 40-seat venue in an 1880s heritage building, which opened in November.
A dish from Esmay, Alanna Sapwell-Stone’s Adelaide restaurant.
She aims to build a community of local growers and producers, championing hyper-seasonal produce on her menu. She’s also focused on creating a sustainable business model – not only for herself, but also her staff.
Esmay is only open Thursdays to Saturdays for dinner, and Fridays to Sundays for lunch. A work-life balance is essential for the couple. Why make the move to the Adelaide Hills and then never get to enjoy it?
“Adelaide itself as a city’s phenomenal,” Stone says. “We’re not even 30 minutes from the centre of town, and we’re in the hills, so geographically it’s great.
“We live in the middle, in Magill, in the foothills, so I can be in town in 15-20 minutes, or I can be up here in 15-20 minutes.
“Behind us is the Morialta Falls, so we hike and we have a view to the ocean from there, which is really lovely.”
Brendon and Kirstyn Keys, formerly from New Zealand, who own Adelaide Hills winery BK Wines. Photo / J. Withers
Their friends across the valley, Brendon and Kirstyn Keys, gave up life in New Zealand for Adelaide.
Originally from Whakatāne and Rotorua, respectively, the couple left New Zealand in 1999 to work a ski season in the French Alps and looked after the house of a family who owned the UK’s Majestic Wines.
“After we’d finished the ski season, they asked us what we were going to do, so we went back to London and I worked for them until we moved back to New Zealand in 2001,” Brendon says.
Back home, Brendon studied winemaking in Gisborne while Kirstyn went back to her work as a registered nurse.
When he qualified, they first moved to South Australia’s McLaren Vale, before ending up in the Adelaide Hills and establishing their winery, BK Wines, in 2007, with their tasting room opening last August.
“When I finished studying, it was a really complicated time, and it felt like there was a lot more opportunity in Australia,” Brendon says. “And then, Adelaide Hills being the youngest region in Australia, it’s so open to creativity and creating new styles. It’s not set in its ways.”
I can understand the attraction. The Adelaide Hills is beautiful. Ribbon gum trees soaring to the skies, grazing cattle, rolling hills. There are about 100 independent wine producers and more than 50 public cellar doors. If you don’t have a sober driver, it’s an easy Uber from the city.
It’s just one of 18 wine regions in South Australia, which itself is a Great Wine Capital of the World.
Barossa is probably its most globally renowned region, and that, too, is just an hour’s drive from the city. It’s well worth a night or two as part of your South Australian holiday.
Australian culinary legend Maggie Beer, who says she’ll never move away from South Australia’s Barossa Valley. Photo / South Australia Tourism Commission
Arguably, the Barossa’s most famous resident is Australia’s culinary queen, Maggie Beer. Now 81, the cookbook author, cook, restaurateur and TV host has been here since the early 1970s, moving with husband Colin and starting their family, who still live nearby.
What does she love so much about the Barossa?
“I spent five years living in Europe and when Colin and I married – he comes from here, his forebears came here in 1848 – I came into a place where, for some reason, I immediately felt I belonged,” Beer says.
I’m talking to her at her famed Farm Shop, where eager students take cooking classes, visitors pop in to buy her famous chutneys, sauces and cheeses, or sit in the tasting room with wines and platters while looking out across the lake.
Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. Photo / South Australia Tourism Commission
“I’m very Mediterranean-based in everything I cook, and this is the perfect Mediterranean climate – all through South Australia but particularly here [in the Barossa]. We can grow everything that I want to cook with.
“The community has got such a base of food and wine and music and culture, and it’s beautiful. I never want to live anywhere else, ever.”
After my three days in South Australia, I can certainly understand why.
Where to stay
Adelaide Marriott Hotel
This $200 million hotel opened in August 2024 and, built around the 150-year-old heritage post office building on King William St, is an effortless combination of old and new. With 285 rooms, a restaurant, coffee bar, meeting rooms, swimming pool and gym, it has everything you need for either business or pleasure. My spacious suite on the corner of the 10th floor felt luxurious and comfortable, with the most beautiful afternoon light. Marriott.theadelaidehotels.com
The original homestead of Kingsford The Barossa was the filming location for Australian drama McLeod’s Daughters. Photo / South Australia Tourism Commission
A signature suite at Kingsford The Barossa, a luxury hotel in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. Photo / South Australia Tourism Commission
Kingsford The Barossa
Fans of Aussie TV dramas will recognise this homestead as the home to McLeod’s Daughters – the eight-season favourite that starred Kiwis Lisa Chappell and Aaron Jeffery. Now it’s a luxurious hotel, retaining its heritage (the homestead was built in 1856), but with a modern, multimillion-dollar expansion added during Covid. As well as excellent dining and views across the valley at in-house restaurant Orleana, there are two bars, an outdoor swimming pool, fire pits, a wine vault, and private dining room with a dining table that seats 70. There’s also, somewhat incongruously, a two-lane bowling alley in the basement. Worldsapart.club/independents/kingsfordbarossa
Getting there
Air New Zealand and Qatar Airways fly direct from Auckland to Adelaide.
Stephanie Holmes travelled courtesy of Tourism Australia.