I’ve been saying how wonderful it is that we can buy handmade wines from boutique wineries in Australia, and a journalist I was talking to asked me to nominate my top 5 boutiques. Here’s what I sent her.
Our wine market is not a level playing field
The shelves of the big liquor chains tend to favour the big wine companies, which make about 70% of the wine in this country. The other 30% is made by several thousand small to medium size wineries, many of them not well known or unknown. At BWU$20, we pride ourselves on supporting small wineries and supporting independent retailers who promote them.
Australia really is the lucky country
We have many small vineyards producing wonderful and unusual wines with distinct characters, often hand-made by gifted young winemakers from dry-grown vineyards and old vines. In Europe, these kinds of wines sit at the top of the quality pyramid and demand high prices. In Australia, many boutique wines sell for around $20 because they haven’t yet developed a strong following.
We’ve chosen just 5 wineries for this piece, but could’ve chosen 50 just as easily. We’ll expand on this in the future and build a more extensive top list. For now, we’ve picked one winery from every state except Queensland.
Rosily Vineyard – Margaret River, production: 6000 cases
The vineyard takes its name from the Comte Francois de Rosily, a French navigator who in 1772 made the first chart of Flinders Bay. It first came to our notice when the Cartographer Cabernet Sauvignon Franc Merlot Petit Verdot 2009 scored 95 points and came in the top 8 wines in a Gourmet Traveller Wine Cabernet shootout, which included wines costing 4 or 5 times as much.
Mike and Barb Scott and Ken and Dot Allan bought the Northern Margaret River site in 1994, and planted cuttings from the Mosswood vineyard around the corner. All the Rosily wines are made from this vineyard , in the attached winery. Nothing fancy here except the wines. Most sell for $17 – $23, and all of them have finesse. They include Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot for the reds. Total output is about 6000 cases.
Massena Vineyards. Barossa Valley, production: 4000 cases
Dan Standish and Jaysen Collins are the young Turks in charge of this tiny operation, and they like making small batches of red wines with attitude from exotic Italian varieties such as Tannat, Saparavi, Primitivo (Zinfandel) and Barbera. They also make a Mataro and a white wine called the Surly Muse from the Southern Rhone varieties of Viognier and Roussanne.
These are highly individual wines with cool names like Moonlight Run and The Howling Dog yet they sell for $20 to $25 at the vineyard, or for a little less at Nicks Vintage Direct in Melbourne. The only drawback is that these unusual wines sell out very fast because of the small quantities made.
Hoddles Creek. Upper Yarra Valley, production: 20,000 cases
The property has been in the d’Anna family since 1960. The vineyards were planted in the nineties to chardonnay, pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, cabernet sauvignon, pinot gris, merlot and pinot blanc. The vines are hand-pruned and the grapes hand-harvested. Franco is the viticulturist and winemaker.
The Estate range Chardonnay and Pinot Noir offer enormous value for around $20, with Pinot offering a pretty decent introduction to the reds of Burgundy. For the cheaper Wickhams Road label ($16), Franco uses grapes from an estate vineyard in Gippsland as well as bought-in grapes from the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula.
Frogmore Creek. Coal River Valley, Southern Tasmania, production: 18,000 cases
Tony Scherer of Tasmania and Jack Kidwiler of California established this organically managed vineyard in the nineties. In the last few years, they acquired several small wineries and boosted their output. The Frogmore Creek and Meadowbank wines are usually priced above $25, except for the Frogmore Creek Riesling which sells for about $20, and it’s a cracker cool climate Riesling.
The 42⁰ range sells for about $19 to $22 at retail. The main focus here is on wines made from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, and they’re stylish and offer excellent value.
MoppityMoppity Vineyards. Production: 30,000 cases, Hilltops Region, Young, NSW
Jason Brown and his wife Alecia bought the winery in 2004, when many of the vines were already 30 years old. The high altitude provides a cool climate with the dry summers and autumns, and the rich red soils are ideal for making great reds that combine generous flavour with finesse and polish. Chardonnay and Riesling do well also.
Moppity is one of our best but least known success stories: so far in 2014, the winery has won 8 trophies and 30 gold medals on the show circuit, and was the best exhibitor at 2 wine shows. Its Reserve Shiraz 2013 has just won the top trophy in the 2014 Visy Great Shiraz Challenge, while the basic Lock & Key Shiraz 2013 was runner up in the 2014 Jimmy Watson judging at the Melbourne Show with 97 points. The Lock & Key wines sell for less than $15 a bottle.
It’s a small number of wineries but they prove our point: we’re living in the lucky country when it comes to finding exciting wines from boutique wineries at budget prices.
Kim
