About Dookie Campus Winery

Dookie Campus, Australia's second oldest and Victoria's oldest agricultural college, as part of the University of Melbourne, began operations in 1910 when Agricultural Science degree students spent a year at Dookie as part of their studies.

The campus is located on what is believed to be part of the lands of the Noorilim people. It was registered in 1842 after favourable reports from Major Sir Thomas Mitchell, in whose opinion the land was suitable for exploitation.

It was not until 1875 that the land was reserved as an agricultural college and experimental farm, after squatters' runs were were broken under the Land Acts of the 1860s and the Dookie district surveyed in the early 1870s.

The Dookie site was selected as being the best available for the purposes of becoming a college, since it had all the necessary conditions to suit. It had the widest variety of soil types and aspect, acres located on hill and plain, and the climate was the perfect example of the whole of the northern farming districts of Victoria.

From the very beginning, the campus has been used for experimentation and trials by students, academics, and industry in general. They even combine with the CSIRO, Department of Primary Industries Victoria, Collaborative Research Centres and industry in their efforts to study better ways to serve the winemaking industry.

They have a long custom of teaching courses in a wide range of rural interests since 1919, beginning with short courses in domestic economy for country women, but now the emphasis is more on equal sexes and in the latest advances in agriculture and technology.

At their Cellar Door visitors can sample such varieties as Cabernet Sauvignon, Tarrango, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Shiraz. All wines made at the vineyard by enthusiastic people, whose mutual aim is to produce wines of the very best quality.