There’s a strong reminder of our Scottish ancestry when you visit the All Saints Estate at Wahgunyah.

Situated on the Murray River near Corowa, about a three-hour drive north-east of Melbourne, the winery was established by Scottish immigrants George Sutherland Smith and John Banks in the 1860s. Its design was inspired by the Castle of Mey – the late Queen Mother’s home in historic Caithness, in the far-north of Scotland.

Listed on the National Estate and Victorian Heritage Register, the late 19th-century winery building, with its imposing brick facade, tower and battlements, was at one time claimed to be the largest wine storage facility in the Southern Hemisphere.

However, when architect Nick Travers, director of Techne, first inspected the site with heritage consultants GML Heritage, the building’s interior was far less grand and in need of an update that was more aligned with the winery’s reputation for producing fine fortified wines that prosper in a dry, hot climate.

One can still see the original interior oregon beams that were imported from the United States and hauled by bullocks from the Port Melbourne pier. There are also some rudimentary dormitory steel sheds with crude built-in bunks that were used by many of the Chinese miners searching for gold in the Rutherglen region.

“It would have been blisteringly hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter,” says Travers, pointing out a roped-off area in the shed that now forms a museum and to mark these historic times.

A separate brick pavilion, designed by architect Philip Cox in the 1960s and following in the vernacular of castle architecture, was considerably more robust than the dorms, but still in need of rehabilitation.

The improvements have been specially designed to attract not only wine connoisseurs but also visitors keen on appreciating the estate’s manicured gardens.