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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
Made like Pet-Nat, but disgorged (i.e. all the solids removed)--a wine that plays in modern techniques, but impresses the most traditional wine drinkers.
About this Wine
What’s a pétillant, you say? Pétillant is a French word that describes a lightly sparkling wine, but it often is paired with the word ‘naturel’ these days (or ‘pet nat’) to describe a style of sparkling wine that is often cloudy and sometimes a little funky. Little Ra Ra, the second label from Pyren Vineyard, has dropped the ‘naturel’ nomenclature, and with it the cloudiness of the style, to make a lightly sparkling and entirely clean, fresh, rosé.
This wine is natural---in the best sense of the word. The grapes are farmed organically and tended by second generation Leighton Joy. There are no adds to this wine -- not even sulfur, because the wine produces its own protection in the form of CO2. But with Leighton and the team’s know-how, they’re able to create a totally natural sparkling wine that is also clean, refreshing, bright, and expressive. This wine will impress your hipster niece, but also pick up new fans with the boomers at Christmas dinner.
If you were with the club back in April, you had Pyren Vineyard’s Cabernet Franc. The Little Ra Ra range is where Leighton Joy gets to play. Think: skin-contact sauvignon blanc, co-fermented white and red grapes, chillable reds, and this pitch-perfect sparkling rosé. All made in a thoughtful way that preserves the quality of Western Victoria fruit. A blend of shiraz and sauvignon blanc (!!) with three hours of skin maceration, this wine has a bright salmon color. The nose is of pickled watermelon, orange oil, lemon myrtle, and acacia blossoms. On the palate, the effervescence is energetic but soft, with refreshing acidity and juicy fruit weight.
Food Pairings
This is a great culinary wine -- the bubbles don’t overrun the fruit, and allow it to pair easily with all manners of food. Of course this can be a pre-dinner drink, but it also works with smoked salmon for brunch, brown-sugar ham at dinner, and everything in between.
Tech Notes
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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
When was the last time you had semillon, clairette, ugni blanc, OR vermentino from the Barossa (let alone, all of them together!). A unique and balanced expression that will impress the French wine fan in your life (they’ll never guess it’s Aus).
About this Wine
We’re venturing outside the Legend portfolio again to represent one of the more exciting producers working in the Barossa today: Spinifex. Peter Schell and Magali Gely established Spinifex Wines in 2001, with a deep passion for (and history in) the Barossa Valley, combined with experience and sensibilities tied to France. They have one foot in France and one foot in the Barossa, creating wines of depth, balance, and personality.
Magali’s family were up until recently vignerons with a long lineage in Lunel, near Montpellier; Peter spent considerable time early in his career working French vintages in regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Provence, and the Languedoc. They made their home in the Barossa in the 90s and haven’t looked back; their influence from both countries is manifest in their wines.
Peter and Magali’s relationships with Eden and Barossa Valley growers has defined the output of Spinifex: always driven by site to make wines connected to the land. The Lola is selected from a handful of sites in the Barossa Valley with white grapes suited to their warm, Mediterranean climate. The 2021 is 66% semillon with 15% clariette, 12% ugni blanc, and 7% vermentino. Complex nose of ripe yellow fruits and fresh herbs – lemon, grapefruit, green mango and fresh curry leaf are complimented by delicate green ginger and brioche notes. Supple, fresh palate, medium in weight, lightly textural with a fresh, delicately stoney finish.
Food Pairings
A great winter white, combining texture and oiliness that is buoyed by its freshness. Pair it with a white bean and escarole soup, dorade in a butter sauce, and roast chicken with root vegetables.
Tech Notes
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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
Pinot noir that doesn’t cost a fortune and still delivers all the warm-fuzzies of the grape.
About this Wine
We said this last month about Patrick Sullivan, but it is equally hard to believe that we’re a full year into the wine club, and you have not had William Downie yet! William Downie is one of the great pinot noir producers in Australia right now, carefully tending a handful of vineyards in the wilds of Gippsland.
Bill started out in wine near the top: a two-year stint with the legendary pinot noir producer Phillip Jones at Bass Phillip in Leongatha, Gippsland. He went on to work for De Bortoli, eventually becoming their senior winemaker in 2006. In the meantime, Downie launched his own label in 2003, quietly sourcing and making some of the best pinot noir in Yarra Valley, Gippsland, and the Mornington Peninsula.
In the early 2000s, Bill also snuck off to Burgundy for harvests, honing his craft with Domaines Fourrier and Hubert Lignier. When Romain Lignier died unexpectedly in 2004, it was Downie who was brought in by the Domaine to lead the winemaking team for the 2004 and 2005 vintages. So if you’re lucky enough to encounter some 2005 Domaine Hubert Ligniers floating around, those wines were made in large part by William Downie.
Today, back in Australia, Bill focuses exclusively on pinot noir: a nearly unheard of dedication in this day-and-age. He makes largely single-vineyard wines from his home in Gippsland, with an occasional Mornington Peninsula bottling. The Cathedral is the outlier: a multi-vineyard, multi-regional pinot noir that showcases Bill’s eye for fruit quality and his skill in blending sites. And guess what? This wine is perfect every year. Single vineyard wines inevitably express the vagaries of the vintage, while the Cathedral is exactly what Downie wants it to be, year in and year out. A perfect, fresh, quaffable pinot noir that represents precisely the bright fruit and savory undertones that are the hallmarks of Victoria.
Food Pairings
So easy and delicious, this is a pinot that doesn’t demand serious food, but it’s not afraid of it either. Grilled portobello mushroom burgers, roast chicken with poached cherries, and cassoulet are great traditional pairings for the wine, but the brightness of the fruit would also stand up to Mexican, Thai, and Indian food.
Tech Notes
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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
Your wine geek friends will know Lagrein---and will only have had it from northern Italy. A rare but highly esteemed grape -- from an even rarer location -- will impress even the most snobby.
About this Wine
Is there anything this wine can’t do?! We’ll wait.
One of our favorite all-purpose wines in the portfolio, the Montevecchio Rosso was inspired by the Roman trattoria. Once seated at these classic Italian establishments, the nonna or nonno asks you: ‘Bianco o Rosso?’ One simple question that overcomes language barriers, transcends a conventional wine list, and guarantees a good time. Whatever carafe of local juice they put down on the table is solidly made, pleases many different palates, and goes well with all the food that emerges from the kitchen.
When Kim and Tennille Chalmers -- the two sisters at the helm of their family’s eponymous vineyard and nursery -- spent time in Italy, they were enchanted by the Italian tradition of the table wine, and wished they had an easy wine for the dinner table. A wine that wasn’t about one particular grape, wasn’t about particular winemaking, but delivered on quality of fruit and versatility. They didn’t see it in Australia, so they made it themselves.
The Montevecchio Rosso is sourced from their estate vineyard in Heathcote, with the blend changing year after year. The exact grapes aren’t the point, it’s about creating a wine every year that is fresh, balanced, and food-friendly. The wine is co-fermented, meaning that the grapes are blended before fermentation. This is relatively rare in the world of wine (many blends are made by fermenting separate grapes and then combining at the end), and always equates to a wine of great cohesion. We don’t see separate grapes working in this wine; we see a totally integrated whole.
But in case you are curious about the grapes -- and to give you an indication of commitment of Chalmers’ nursery program -- the blend on this wine is 28% Lagrein, 25% Nero d'Avola, 20% Sagrantino, 11% Sangiovese, 9% Nebbiolo, 6% Schioppettino and 1% Lambrusco Maestri. (Whoa!) That’s a super-charged blend of some of the greatest Italian grapes (grown and made in Victoria, Australia!), combining elements that provide tannin, others that provide acid, and different fruit qualities from all to make a perfectly balanced whole.
Food Pairings
We’ll make this one easy--anything you would have at a Roman Trattoria. Think: Bucatini all’Amatriciana, Saltimbocca, braised oxtail, and fried artichokes. Or any old red-sauce pizza and pasta will do.
Tech Notes
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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
Top-rated Aussie shiraz that showcases a different side of the grape.
About this Wine
As we put together this quarter’s wine club, we realized we had a bit of an informal theme: the blend. Whether it was a wild white-red blend (Little Ra Ra), a co-fermented field blend (Montevecchio Rosso), a blend of different regions in Victoria (Downie Cathedral) or a blend of dozens of vintages (Seppeltsfield), all the wines in the club are studies on what it means to be a blend. Well, almost all.
We figured to drive home the point of what a blend is and isn’t, we’d have one wine that is a blend in no way: a single vineyard, single grape, single vintage wine. We present: Syrahmi ‘Introspect’ Shiraz 2020. As this line-up has proven, blends can have the utmost intentionality and quality, but what they can’t be is a detailed study on what a single grape can do in a single vineyard in a single year. Adam Foster, the proprietor and winemaker behind Syrahmi, has built his whole winery around showing what single vineyard syrah can look like. And the world of wine is better for it.
Adam Foster started off his career in the kitchen, completing a chef’s apprenticeship and working in some of Victoria and London’s best kitchens. But he always had a more-than-passing interest in wine, and began extensive travels throughout Europe in his studies, learning and discovering some of the most outstanding regions and labels firsthand. With the guidance and support of people such as Ron Laughton (Jasper Hill), Don Lewis (Mitchelton), Stephane Ogier, Michel Chapoutier, and Pierre Gaillard (all Northern Rhône royalty), Foster alternated harvests in Australia and France for years.
Foster released his first vintage of Heathcote Shiraz in 2004 with only 100 cases, made from a ton and a half of grapes purchased from Heathcote Winery. The name ‘Syrahmi’ emerged soon after, made up from ‘Syrah,’ the French word for Shiraz, and ‘Ami,’ meaning friend. The idea being a ‘friendly Shiraz’ or a ‘friend of Shiraz’.
Each year, grapes for Syrahmi are sourced and selected from different vineyards in the Heathcote region. Thus each year the wines are given a different name to reflect the vintage – such as Granite, Finesse, XV, Dreams, and, in 2020, Introspect. Introspect is sourced from the Carl Brown Vineyard in Colbinnabin. Planted in 2002 on south facing slopes at 200m in elevation, the vineyard sits on the classic Cambrian red basalt of Heathcote.
If you think you know Australian shiraz, this wine will make you think again. Adam recently included his wines in a blind tasting for the US trade, set up against the likes of Chave Hermitage and Gonon Saint-Joseph (no big deal, considered two of the top syrahs ever made). His wine sat very comfortably in that company, and most of the trade thought that his wines were in fact Northern Rhône. To the trained eye, Adam’s wines have a bit more plumpness of fruit than their French counterparts, and a subtly herbaciousness that speaks to Australia, but they look more kindred to France than the Barossa. These wines are consistently reviewed as some of the top in Australia (James Halliday’s Wine Companion gave this wine 97 points) and only 28 cases came into the country.
Food Pairings
You gotta go classic with this one: syrah always looks great against a rack of lamb. Make this one a little extra Aussie: fry up some river mint with a side of potatoes, add a eucalyptus leaf to the jus, and sprinkle a few finger lime pearls in the side salad.
Tech Notes
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One Sentence to Impress Your Friends
You can tell people all about the history of Seppeltsfield and the hundred-year-old barrel-aged wines, or you can just pour them a taste. This wine impresses without any context.
About this Wine
Seppeltsfield is quite literally one of the most historic estates in all of Australia, established in the Barossa Valley by Joseph and Johanna Seppelt just 15 years after the European settlement of South Australia. In 1850, Joseph Seppelt, an emigrant of Silesia (modern day Poland), purchased 158 acres of land in Nuriootpa, Barossa, and the winery was founded the next year.
Seppeltsfield flourished into the 20th century. Along with wine, the Seppelt stable included brandy, gin, vermouth, assorted cordials, and vinegars. But perhaps the jewel in the crown -- a tradition that started in the 1870s -- is the Centennial Collection. Seppeltsfield has the longest unbroken lineage of single-vintage wine of any winery in the world. Every vintage, from 1878 to the current year, of Seppeltsfield Para Tawny sits patiently in barrel in their Centennial Cellar. And the estate remains the only winery in the world to release a 100 year-old barrel-aged, single vintage wine each year with the 100-Year Vintage Para Tawny.
Famed Australian wine writer James Halliday said of Seppeltsfield: “These wines have no parallel anywhere else in the world. The conjunction of 100 years of devoted stewardship and climate/terroir/varieties have had an outcome that can never, ever, be duplicated.”
And though we wish we could include the 100YR in the wine club (the 1925 released earlier this year), that wine retails for about $1800. Maybe when we make a reserve tier! But in the meantime, we are able to include Seppeltsfield’s Para Grand Tawny, which is just as big a part of their fortified wine tradition. The Para Grand Tawny is the result of careful blending of individual vintage parcels, patiently matured in oak barrels within the historic cellars of Seppeltsfield, to achieve an average age of 10 years (but often with 20-30 year old wines included, for added complexity).
We could write a whole essay on the notes you’ll get here, but think: praline, vanilla nougat, espresso, toasted Atherton almonds (a specialty of Queensland), orange zest, and salted chocolate. A medium weighted, elegant wine with supple sweetness balanced by oak-aged structure and saline acidity. And a true piece of Australian winemaking history.
Food Pairings
This wine is a dessert in and of itself, but it also pairs well with a myriad of sweets. Crème brûlée, chocolate cake, tiramisu, peanut praline, salted caramel…we would stay away from desserts that are too fruity, otherwise you can’t go wrong. You can also add a splash to an after-dinner coffee or shake it up with espresso for the ultimate espresso mar-tawny (get it?!). This wine belongs on every holiday table.
Tech Notes
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