Bridget Mac started winemaking with a vintage in 2019 at Lethbridge Wines in Geelong. She went on to Sutton Grange Winery in Central Victoria with Melanie Chester, and later spent a vintage in Tasmania with Jim Chatto. In parallel, she completed wine science studies at Charles Sturt University.
Before wine, Mac trained and worked as a visual artist. The move into winemaking follows the same impulse to work with material and process, but in an agricultural and time-sensitive medium.
She established Werkstatt in 2021, following her time at Sutton Grange and in Tasmania. The name, taken from the German for “workshop,” evokes the artistic essence of turn-of-the century Vienna (The Vienna Werkstaett being a group of art nouveau and arts and crafts artists that wove modernity into traditional artisan crafts). The wines are made in small volumes, with each release reflecting the conditions of the vintage and the character of the fruit at hand.
