Background
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Howard Staehr was raised in the Grampians on a family farming property growing grain and sheep, went to school at Horsham Tech, played football for Laharum and Horsham and enjoyed other sports, athletics and cricket.
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and management While his work drew him to the capital cities, his passion for wine, farming and the Grampians drew him back. Howard was driven to make one of the best shiraz wines in the world, which he readily benchmarked against the world’s best.
After extensive research on the climate, soil profiles and terroir of the region and completing a short viticulture course, Howard sought the advice of local legend Viv Thompson (Best’s Great Western) before planting the boutique shiraz vineyard at Laharum, on the western slopes of the Grampians in 2002. Howard engaged talented Grampians winemaker in Don McRae(the perfectionist), who has a wine science degree from Charles Sturt University in NSW and over 30 years’ in the wine industry, quickly reaping the benefits of his experience. The first shiraz vintage was in 2004. The 2006 vintage won a Gold Medal and was ranked second in the world at the prestigious 2008 AWC Vienna International Wine Challenge. Subsequent vintages have been ranked 12th, 20th and 37th in the largest international competitions in the world. The 2012 Howard Shiraz was nominated by well known wine writer Anthony Rose (in his list of 5 wines) for the Decanter Wine Magazine top 50 Must Buy Wines in the World of 2016. Mount Stapylton Wines is Grampians born and bred, and today Howard continues the tradition of presenting regular wine dinners to introduce a new wave of vinophiles to showcase the wines of this spectacular region. After achieving great success with the shiraz in the Grampians Howard and Samantha then established a vineyard on their other property in the Upper Yarra Valley in 2009, to make a world class chardonnay and pinot noir. Their first two vintages made with winemaker Caroline Mooney have received many international awards. Due to other work and travel commitments they sold this vineyard in 2013. In mid 2017 Howard's brother and family took over the management and ownership of the Mount Stapylton Vineyard. Howard still has monthly wine dinners and offers customers a variety of Australian and International Wines through MTS Wines (My Tasted Selection )with some of his older vintages of shiraz. |