David Hamilton planted vines in the Kuitpo sub-region of the Adelaide Hills in 1997, with the help of viticultural guru Geoff Hardy. David grew grapes and sold them to local wineries. He dabbled in making wine for himself but never really released anything commercially.

In 2016, David’s son James processed some grapes from the family vineyard to produce a few barrels of wine for the first ever Golden Child vintage. James had experience making wine in Australia and California and used the Golden Child name to reference banter between himself and his sister. The wines were well received and the brand has been growing ever since.

The Southern Adelaide Hills provide a unique combination of elevation and coastal influence. The daytime temperatures range from cool to moderate with sea breezes from Gulf St Vincent causing rapid cooling of our vines in the evening. This difference in daytime and night-time temperature is known as diurnal variation and results in balanced wines that have fantastic phenolic and flavour ripeness, with great natural acid retention.

In terms of winemaking, we're very gentle and precise in the winery, and aim to get the wine from grape into bottle with minimal manipulation. We add a small amount of sulphur before bottling, with very little other additions used throughout the rest of the winemaking process. Most of our wines receive a light pad filtration.

We aim to make fresh, bright, interesting wines that are easy to drink but also sometimes make you think..