Vaughn Again: Sowing & regrowing love at Sinapius

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

From ‘The Waking’ by Theodore Roethke

Linda Morice (and Rufus) above the Enclave block, which borders Delamere

Vaughn Dell’s heart stopped on a northern Tasmanian vineyard in May 2020. We all knew isolation then, or thought we did. Feelings felt remote, but tears were never far away, and stasis was the status quo. The layers of weirdness might have muffled the seismic shock for Vaughn’s wife, Linda Morice; certainly, what happened next was a blur. But she kept on. For 15 years, they had been growing a future here, everything constantly beginning or becoming—the vines, the wines, their daughters. Perhaps there wasn’t a choice. But maybe some things just become a part of you, especially when it’s your love that made them.

VAUGHN & LINDA

Few couples can claim to have been close from birth. But Linda was inches away, curled up inside her pregnant midwife mother, when Vaughn was delivered into the world.

They grew up in Smithton on Tasmania's far northwest coast. Vaughn was a sporty kid, not conventionally studious, but obsessively into specific things. “His mum would tell you that if there was something he was interested in, he was just full-on into it,” says Linda. “Like, basketball players or things like that—he knew every single thing. He was obsessive about birds, definitely, and cars. He loved gardening; he was always growing things in his backyard. He was just very focused.”

They had been a year apart at school and hooked up aged 17, by which time Vaughn was living in Hobart and Linda finishing boarding school in Launceston. Tall, athletic Vaughn had a good shot at making it as an AFL player, and Linda was eyeing a university place to become an occupational therapist (OT).

That took her to Sydney, where Vaughn followed a year later. He lasted next to no time in a sports science degree and ended up getting a café job through the footy club. Some of his fellow players were into wine, and just down the road from work was Number One Wine Bar on Alfred Street in Circular Quay. The “whole new world” of wine gripped him like those earlier obsessions. He did weekend TAFE courses in the Hunter. Linda recalls the incongruous sight of her rangy, 21-year-old footballer bounding into a bookshop to buy the latest edition of the James Halliday Australian Wine Companion.

Come 2003, Vaughn was teaching AFL in Sydney’s primary schools. He saw sport and wine signposted at his career crossroads and turned to the latter. He enrolled in a winemaking course by correspondence with Charles Sturt University and spent a year working with Guy Lamothe’s Wedgetail Estate in the Yarra Valley.  

The Clem field blend, named for Linda and Vaughn's youngest daughter

From there, Vaughn lined up a role in Margaret River, and Linda landed an OT position in Bunbury. The Margaret River job didn’t eventuate, but Western Australia planted seeds that would set the tone of Sinapius. Vaughn’s sense of self was strong enough that striking out on their own didn’t seem far-fetched. And that identity extended to style. Much as they admired the Margaret River wines of the early 2000s, their polish and conservatism didn’t resonate. “We saw a lot of sameness. You go from producer to producer, and the Chardonnays would taste the same, the Cabernets would taste the same—good wines, but not a lot of personality, or just lacking something,” says Linda. “But we'd often go down to Albany or Mount Barker or those Great Southern regions, and we were seeing a lot more sort of diversity and style and just more uniqueness in the wines. We thought, ‘Well, this is this sort of more like us.’”

They bought land in Mount Barker to plant a vineyard. Right plan, right time, wrong place. Starting from scratch 4,000km away from family wasn’t ideal. (“When you look back at it now, you think, ‘Oh my god!’”). They were saved from that misstep by the farmer next door, who offered a good price to take it off their hands.

Around the same time, Golders Vineyard in Pipers River—a three-hour drive east of Smithton—was put up for sale. Vaughn flew over to check it out. It ticked a lot of boxes. With two hectares of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay planted in 1994 and ’98, it had produced some pretty good wines. It had a good aspect, facing north and northeast, ideal for soaking up sun on a cool island where sparkling wine led the way. Just 5km inland from Bass Strait, it had maritime influence to extend the growing season and moderate temperatures with prevailing north-westerly sea breezes. It had volcanic-based soils: deep red ferrosols and ironstone gravels with a layer of micaceous quartz siltstone. And it was close to other drawcard wineries like Pipers Brook, Jansz and the cellar doors of Tamar Valley.

It was 2005. Vaughn and Linda were 23 years old and ready to get started.

VAUGHN

To create anything of value, you have to shut out noise, decide what matters and do some things that, frankly, don’t make sense.  “The strength of that place was always Vaughn’s commitment to what he was doing,” says Joe Holyman, who bought his Stoney Rise property in the Tamar Valley with his wife Lou in 2004. “He just did things differently. Vaughn's lack of direction was sometimes his direction.” That’s the way with dreams built on principles: they find their own course.

Wine-growing gripped Vaughn like those birds, cars or basketballers of his youth. He was a voracious information-gatherer, his head always in “those goddam books”—unless, even better, there was a French vigneron he could bail up and shower in a blizzard of questions on viticulture, equipment, winemaking, whatever. “We were lucky to have a winemaker from Beaujolais come out and do a vintage with us,” recalls Linda of a time down the track. “He was quite opportunistic—so again, getting as much information out of him, how to do this, how to do that.”

 The curiosity itself was keenly trained, backed by immense optimism and capability. The vineyard was ambitious and original. There was no Australian template for the kind of holistic high-density planting that Vaughn embarked on, modelled on Burgundy and still cutting-edge here almost 20 years later. He planted blocks at 1.3 metres between rows and 1 metre between vines (7,700 vines/ha) with later sections rising to 11,111 vines/ha, aiming for the deep roots, high plant competition and low yields per vine (about 500 grams of fruit) that might deliver an unprecedented level of complexity, concentration and character.

Vaughn Dell visiting the Grands Crus of Chablis

He constructed the original house that became the family home on the property, knocked up the first shed that became the cellar door and built the winery, too. “So yeah, he certainly had a very can-do kind of attitude,” says Linda. And he really could do. The gardens are gorgeous, and the cellar door takes in the sweeping views down the slope towards Pipers Brook. He ripped out most of the original vines planted across the slope on terraces, instead running the rows down the long, steep hill. He established parcels to exploit the site’s undulations, aspects and soil types—a patchwork that makes the most of the land, with inherent potential for quality and intricacy in the wines. “The beautiful thing is that Vaughn was the kind of guy who was always willing to back himself in everything he did,” says friend and neighbour Shane Holloway of Delamere Vineyards.

None of which guaranteed it would work, of course. It’s an expensive, back-breaking way to farm, and we’re talking about a marginal climate at a time when sparkling wines—requiring less ripe grapes—were the norm. “We were a bit naïve because we were young and enthusiastic,” reflects Linda. “Maybe, 5 or 10 years later, we probably wouldn't have done it, to be honest, if we'd waited any longer because maybe reality and common sense would have set in.”

Vaughn’s singular vision and can-do ethos extended to the branding. “We had that really crappy paint program on the computer—like, really, really basic—and that’s how he designed all the all the wine labels,” says Linda. “We’ve never paid a graphic designer to do anything for us.” And then there is the name. Strong, surprising, resonant. For Linda, it came out of the blue. “My great, great, great grandmother's surname was Sinapius,” says Linda. “And I remember distinctly when we were in Margaret River—I think we must have been close to closing the deal—and I clearly remember him saying, ‘It’ll be called Sinapius.’ I'm like, ‘Oh, OK, that's really… that’s not what I was expecting.’ It’s obviously something from my family, not from his. It's just what it was, even before we'd signed on the dotted line. Yeah, really weird.”

The winemaking was always going to be a work in progress. Vaughn hadn’t completed his course at Charles Sturt, and in any case, his method was more a bric-a-brac of wisdom gleaned from books and cross-examined sages. And, of course, the real answers had to be extracted from the dirt, the seasons and the labour of it all.

Sinapius's high-density vines run across picturesque slopes above Pipers Brook

But success struck early. The 2007 Chardonnay—the first Sinapius wine Vaughn made—took out top gold in the Tasmanian Wine Show. Linda vividly remembers the excitement and, bluntly, relief: They were onto something. “I think that's probably the first and last wine Vaughn ever entered into a wine show,” she says. True to form, Vaughn didn’t want others to define Sinapius; it had to speak for itself. In short order, he culled extraneous details from the labels. Sinapius is in the bottle. That’s it. That’s us.

Vaughn and Linda trod their own path with the grapes and styles they championed, too. They gave Burgundy’s sacred duo Pinot Noir and Chardonnay the respect they deserved, but Vaughn’s enquiring mind extended far beyond the Côte d’Or. He loved Gamay for its vivacity and ability in Beaujolais to joyfully celebrate its precise provenance. He set out to become Tasmania’s foremost producer. Vaughn and Linda named their original iteration Esmé after their eldest daughter. It developed something of a cult following years before Gamay fever gripped Australia.

Their other daughter, Clem, was similarly honoured by an avant-garde classic. Inspired by Austria’s Gemischter Satz, Vaughn conceived a vibrantly aromatic white comprising Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay Musqué and Gewürztraminer. Hotchpotch white blends became a fad around the time, more as a style than a statement of place. For Vaughn, it had to be the real deal. “If you're going to do it, you have to 100%,” says Linda. “It's got to be a field blend; it’s got to be picked at the same time; it's got to be co-fermented. So, no compromise there.”

Vaughn loved Grüner Veltliner and had big plans for it—a vision that crystallised further when he took the family to Austria after winning the Dr Don Martin Sustainable Viticulture Award in 2017. The trip afforded countless chances to pin down winemakers and drill into the essence of terroir wines from the Danube Valley, Burgundy and Beaujolais. It was a wonderful time with the family and further confirmation that he belonged in this world he loved. And much as he was a sponge for information—his encyclopaedic knowledge of Côte d’Or climats, for instance, made Rain Man look hazy on detail—he shared it with equal fervour. “It just kind of oozed out of him,” says Linda. “You would know where he was in the room—he was quite loud, a big personality. If you asked him the right questions, it would just flow.” 

Linda, Vaughn, Clem and Esmé on the Don Martin Award trip to Vienna in 2018

The more recent introduction of Ribolla Gialla, a native of the Italy-Slovenia border, to the 4.3-hectare vineyard is further evidence of Vaughn and Linda's fearlessness to tread new ground. But much as they ploughed their own furrow, they were not alone. There were the Holymans in Gravelly Beach, and Bec and Tim Duffy, who bought nearby Holm Oak in 2006. Right next door to Sinapius, Fran Austin and Shane bought Delamere a year later. “So, there were quite a few of us of a similar age, the new wave, I guess, of winemakers and winegrowers coming into the region.”

As is always the case with wine, there were ebbs and flows. The wines stood out and received critical acclaim, and people fell in love with the cellar door and the story. But there were tough seasons, too, and the upkeep of the high-density vineyard demanded faith beyond reason and equipment beyond the norm. “I remember one time, Vaughn just got really frustrated. Like, ‘What am I doing? This is ridiculous. I'm going to go and pull every second row out.’ He must have had a conversation with Shane next door, and Shane just said, ‘No, what you’re doing is amazing. This is you. This is Sinapius. The point of difference. Just stick it out.’” 

If anything, those friendships would become even more precious when the unthinkable happened.

PAUSE

Tasmania went into statewide Covid lockdown on 31st March 2020, with vintage not yet wrapped up. Rather than hunker down in Launceston, Vaughn, Linda and the girls retreated to Sinapius. Isolated but ensconced together in their Pipers River haven.

The idyll shattered in the early hours of 19th May when Vaughn died in his sleep from an undiagnosed heart condition.

“Just... just... shock. Like, how does that happen?” Linda says, looking back to that moment. The pandemic’s prevailing sense of dissociation compounded the trauma. It was lonely, confusing, surreal. Vaughn couldn’t have a proper funeral; just 10 people were allowed to attend. It was streamed and watched by many in the local community and broader wine industry, hopeless and bleary-eyed in our locked-down homes. “Very strange times,” she says. “Not good.”

LINDA

“I was the one that allowed it all to happen by doing other things,” Linda says. As an occupational therapist, she didn’t have to be tethered to a place; they could even have made the bonkers Mount Barker plan work. With Sinapius up and running, she had a private practice 50km away in Launceston, flexible, rewarding and sustaining. Linda loves wine—always loved it—and when Vaughn got in from the vines or out from the books, she was there to listen, to taste and give her opinion. On the estate, though, her section was finances, logistics, running the cellar door and running around after the girls—all essential work; small businesses don’t run on romance. What’s more, you could apply OT’s holistic healthcare approach to any workplace. Linda’s gift with the big-picture, long-term side of things was a handy counterweight to Vaughn’s in-the-moment hyperfocus.

But still, the other stuff—the Vaughn stuff—she’d never done any of it. You might think winter in the vineyard offered a reprieve, but nothing stops. Wine sales went through the roof, and Kym Clayton, who’d joined as cellar door manager in 2019, got more than she bargained for. “Kym was trying to manage grieving with all of us and then trying to manage people buying lots of wine to support us. We still had wine in the winery and had to deal with that. We had to prune the vineyard. It was all really hectic, but we just had to keep doing it. So, we just did. Time keeps going, and you essentially just keep going. Well, you can choose to stop, I guess, but I really didn’t see that as an option. So, yeah, very blurry to all of us.”

In the vines and winery, Linda was starting from scratch. “I didn't prune. I'd never hooked up a pump, so I had to learn all of that. I’d never even driven a forklift. I had to learn how to become a good forklift driver. I had to go and get my gun license. I mean, what the…? Crazy.” Winemakers rallied, with Delamere’s Fran Austin helping to put on a memorable working bee where 40-odd people came from vineyards all over to get the site ready for spring. “That was quite amazing,” says Linda. “And, yeah, people certainly were happy to help. But over time, that sort of drops off. You know people are there, but then you just have that smaller core of people.”

Sinapius cellar door manager Kym Clayton

Shane Holloway, Joe Holyman and Peter Dredge (Dr Edge), in particular, have remained constant sounding boards. To begin with, they let her know what Vaughn would have done in her place, but the advice soon shifted. “I always felt my job was not about whether Linda could do it or not, but showing her that she could do it,” says Holyman. “In a quite brutal way, I said, 'While you need to remember Vaughn's commitment and choices, you have to do it your way, find your own ground.’”

“I had to learn everything, literally everything,” says Linda. “And then, yeah: vintage. Gawd!” Fortunately, in summer 2021, she had a French winemaker who’d worked in the vineyard and stayed on for vintage. But since then, she’s done it all on her own. As well as fathomless reserves of resilience and lessons absorbed from Vaughn, she has drawn on her intuition and upbringing on her parents’ beef and dairy property. “I think growing up on a farm is probably one of the things I’m quite grateful for now. My dad had three girls, but he didn’t treat us as though we were daughters; we were just his children that had to get the job done. So, we did everything on the farm. We were, you know, driving tractors at an early age.”

Operating machinery is one thing, but what happens when it conks out or springs a leak? In the vineyard, in the cellar, in the office, there are endless tasks to stay on top of, even when everything goes right. “These businesses are so complex, there are so many elements,” says Fran Austin. “You’ve just got to wear so many hats—you’re so many things. If you didn’t have the will and the drive to do it—no matter how many people might be there to help you—you still couldn’t do it.” Holyman concurs. “Linda hasn’t done it out of duty–you can’t do that,” he says. “She’s got a really good palate; she understands all the processes. It was never not going to work out.”

Vaughn's Jardin is a single block of Gamay planted at 11,111 vines per hectare

What’s most surprised Linda, though, is how much she enjoys it. “Every day is different, although you’re doing a lot of the same thing. I really like it. And, you know, what's in the bottle, you’ve created. There are not many jobs where you can properly say, ‘Oh, I made this’ or ‘I've grown this.’ So, that’s, that's pretty special.”  

What might also surprise Linda is that the satisfaction she’s found has ended up helping those who came to her aid in her darkest hour. “To see how she’s coped with all this, I have so much respect—how she’s been able to carry on the business and philosophy,” says Austin. “It sounds strange, but it’s been kind of fulfilling and healing for the rest of us, to see her do it.”

SINAPIUS

Symbiosis and cycles are written into vineyard life. In the act of creation or generation, there is recreation, regeneration. By virtue of growing, we grow, if you will. How the spirit of something infuses us as we go is imperceptible until it’s so ingrained that it seems indivisible from us. The numbing impact from grief and the blithe onward plod of time might leave us less apt to notice the shifting. “For the first few years, you're just going because nothing else stops,” says Linda. “So it’s a really strange sort of thing. It’s like you’re on this train or something else that moves. I don't know where it’s going, but it’s going, and you’re on it.”

And then, suddenly, it’s changed. During the 2024 harvest, Linda found herself free to do things differently. “I sort of felt like, ‘I’m going to do this, or I’m going change that, or I’m going to do something different.’ I’ve let myself have the licence to make those changes myself.” It’s not just on the vineyard that things have started to flow. Though it mightn’t ooze from her like it did from Vaughn, and while she might never be the loudest person in the room, she has found her voice. “It's one of the first times I’ve been in the trade, doing stuff, talking about what I do, and felt OK with it, if that makes sense.”

Linda Morice looks over the Gamay vines in the block known as Vaughn's Jardin

Sometimes when she responds reflexively, incisively, she even surprises herself—Wow. Where’d I just pull that from? But this is how it goes. She is there, often by herself, just getting it done, moving like it’s second nature. Repetition, adaptation, aptitude. “And then, when you’re in a group, or you’re asked to talk about something, these words just come out,” Linda says. “And then you think, ‘Oh, OK. I’m fully invested in this because I haven’t rehearsed anything here. That’s just my life now, and that’s what I live day to day. And you can’t really make that stuff up.”

As I speak to Linda across the kitchen table of the house Vaughn built, the first shoots have started to peak through their buds on the Gamay vines in the block known as Vaughn’s Jardin, just outside the window. I ask her how she feels about cycles, sensing there’s a couple of ways they can be read. Do you see dynamism and renewal or relentless reminders of things that have been, things to be done? “I think I like the cycle,” she says. “Yeah. Everything’s different; every day is different, and every season is different. I think that’s good and maybe healing. Changing and not being stagnant, always planning and looking forward all the time.”

The Sinapius cellar door is an award-winning wine tourism destination

It immediately calls Vaughn to mind—the image of the AFL player with a new goal away from the oval, a mind fired by wine and a world of possibilities, endless questions whose answers would beg a myriad more. Their own puzzles to solve their own way. Vaughn must have been a force field of hope. But, after all, not the only one. “I think I probably didn't realise how much of a positive person I must be,” Linda says, like the penny’s just dropped. “Yeah. Very optimistic and just happy to get on with it.”

There, again, a virtuous circle. Every year, a little stronger and wiser than before, ready for what’s next. “I don't think there’d ever be a point you could get to and go, ‘I know what to do in this part, this place, at this time,’” says Linda. “Every year, every season, is totally different. And that’s kind of cool because you’ve got new challenges, and you have to be a little bit spontaneous and intuitive and use the knowledge from all those past experiences to have an impact on what you do going forward.”

It is kind of cool—and very Sinapius. Vaughn couldn’t have put it better himself.