Tyke Wheatley

Growing up in the Swan Valley during his teen years, Tyke earnt his pocket money working in the local vineyards. On his 18Th he was gifted a bottle of ‘Jack Mann’, after tasting the wine, and admiring all the complexities of the wine and the work that goes into producing a bottle, he knew he wanted to be a winemaker.

After graduating Wine Oenology in 2008 Tyke landed a job at Picardy, working under the founder of Moss Wood, Bill Pannel and his son Dan. From there Tyke worked in Burgundy, France and then came back to work as Assistant Winemaker under Mark Warren at Happs Winery. Mark was his lecturer at university, together they shared their passion for wine and produced many trophy and gold winning wines over the 5 years.

In 2012, it was time to time to help at his wife Billie’s family vineyard Windance. Tyke became the viticulturalist and winemaker. In 2014 Tyke and Billie purchased Windance from her parents. From there they certified the vineyard organic in 2020, bio-dynamic in 2021, and then switched to Demeter Bio-dynamics in 2022. Demeter is the oldest Certifying body in organics in the world and holds the strictest standards.

Tyke has won a whopping 23 trophies for his Windance wines. Tyke’s hands-on approach and attention to detail, pushes him to constantly improve, trial and reassess. With the aim of producing the bests wines in the most environmentally friendly way possible.