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'Two for the Road' Exhibition
Star climber
About Us
Tilley's Wines, is an independent, family business, led by Ivor Tilley, which specialises in importing top quality, South Australian wines from small producers, focusing on the regions: McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills and Clare Valley.
The business started in 1985 and today is proud to represent over ten boutique South Australian vineyards exclusively in the UK, and is always on the lookout to add exciting, undiscovered wineries to their hand-picked portfolio.
As background, Ivor has not always been involved in wine (though has always enjoyed drinking it!); he has a long history in the leather and footwear trade for which the village he lives, Wollaston, is famous and where he also owns one of the few remaining English shoe factories, NPS. His connection with South Australia however is through his wife Jennie, whose family all reside in McLaren Vale. And as a result the Tilley family have been lucky enough to visit the area at Christmas for the past 30 years.
Every Christmas, Ivor, never content on sitting still, split his time between the golf course and sampling wines at local cellar doors. Over the years he developed close relationships with some the area’s winemakers and was exposed to the stark difference between the high quality of the wines he tasted in South Australia, compared to what was he believed was affordable and accessible in the UK.
So with the help of his brother-in-law Mauri Reilly, who is lucky enough to live in McLaren Vale and have great wines on his doorstep, Ivor approached wineries unrepresented in the UK and shipped few cases back home to share with friends to showcase their outstanding depth and flavours; something he felt was missing in the UK.
And that’s where it all started: since launching the business twenty five years ago, the response from friends and clients looking for quality reds and whites has been explosive. The results of which have amounted to an impressive range of clients from private to trade customers, who all share the enthusiasm for unique wines soaked with character and complexity. Success in finding these great wines is also seen by the amount of serious wine press that has been generated: James Halliday, Matthew Jukes, the Wine Spectator, Jancis Robinson to name but a few.
All of Tilley's Wines's efforts are put into sourcing South Australian wine which has been hand-crafted through the use of own-grown grapes, where an emphasis on yield and flavour takes precedent over the sometimes dull solutions offered through mass-production in the UK.
Ivor hopes you enjoy the range he has to offer and would love to hear from you if you have any questions about the wines or if you think there's something we should try our next visit to South Australia!