Home > Wines We Love > 2022 Lethbridge Gamay

A classic expression of the grape, with forest berries, cherries and a flash of violets pitched in an elegant and poised frame, an undercurrent of ruggedly regional minerality making its presence felt.

Producer
Lethbridge
Region

Geelong
RRP

$58
Vintage

2022
Variety/Varieties

Gamay
Alc./Vol.

12.9%

Gamay from the Lethbridge estate vineyard, this is a classic expression of the grape, with forest berries, cherries and a flash of violets pitched in an elegant and poised expression, an undercurrent of ruggedly regional minerality making its presence felt.

Tasting note

There’s a whiff of smoky reduction to this, but it blows off to reveal a poised nose of blackberry, raspberry and blueberry, a lilting note of violets adding detail. Those notes have an appealing reserve, ripe but stressing tart notes of wild fruits, with a background of rugged regional minerality and a hint of mulberry that plays out in flavour and a moreish acidity coupled with fine, sandy tannins.

Themes of this wine

Gamay

Gamay – the sole red grape of Beaujolais – has had a slowish start in this country, but enthusiasm is rapidly growing. The potential for it to make engagingly distinctive wine is key, but the grape is also a lot less fickle than its cousin pinot noir. Gamay’s flavours tend to be a bit fuller than pinot, with riper, more luscious forest berries and flashes of violets quite common. It also commonly displays fruit in a cherry spectrum, both red and black, depending on ripeness. It’s a variety that holds acidity quite well, so it can be fresh, and it often has quite a bit of tannin, which is very apparent in the more serious and age-worthy bottlings. Like pinot noir, it can also be quite transparent in its reflection of terroir, with minerality often on show

Geelong

On the surface, it’s easy to compare the Geelong wine region with the Mornington Peninsula. Its Bellarine Peninsula embraces Port Phillip Bay in tandem with the Mornington Peninsula, and two of the regional heroes are chardonnay and pinot noir, but the two are remarkably dissimilar, with Geelong sprawling both along the coast and bay, as well as inland, unlike water-flanked Mornington. While Mornington catches the light with a good dose of glamour, Geelong has a quieter resolve and greater subregional diversity, with lighter soils making fragrant wines as well as volcanic sites producing those with dark fruit profiles and rugged minerality.

Home > Wines We Love > 2020 Lethbridge ‘Vero’ Tempranillo

A departure from the rich styles of tempranillo so often made, this emphasises red fruits and white pepper spice on a midweight frame with grippy tannins and rugged regional mineral notes to close.

Producer
Lethbridge
Region

Geelong
RRP

$48
Vintage

2020
Variety/Varieties
Alc./Vol.

12.9%

Ray Nadeson is a charmingly restless soul, crafting classic wines from the signature varieties of his Geelong region as well as delving ever deeper into alternative methods and varieties to add countless new strings to his bow. A departure from the rich styles of tempranillo so often made, this emphasises red fruits and white pepper spice on a midweight frame with grippy tannins and rugged regional mineral notes to close.

Tasting note

The nose here is a melange of red berries and spice notes, with sour cherries, white pepper, sarsaparilla, malt, spiced plum and orange peel on a midweight elegant frame, the darker more saturated notes that sometimes present with the variety absent, but with a rugged regional minerality underpinning and complexing. There’s ample tannin here, but it’s fine, with an appealing Old World feel to the chewy grip, spiced red and black berries cresting through the finish.

Themes of this wine

Tempranillo

Tempranillo is Spain’s most celebrated red grape, accounting for the lion’s share of many of their top wines, most famously from Rioja and Ribera del Duero. It’s a grape that has a decent foothold in this country, too, with over 700 hectares planted. Although often associated with a warm climate, tempranillo favours a more moderate one, producing flavours in both a red and black fruit spectrum, with berries, plums, cherries, florals and woody herbs, with savoury notes of earth and tobacco not uncommon – cola is also a common descriptor.

Geelong

On the surface, it’s easy to compare the Geelong wine region with the Mornington Peninsula. Its Bellarine Peninsula embraces Port Phillip Bay in tandem with the Mornington Peninsula, and two of the regional heroes are chardonnay and pinot noir, but the two are remarkably dissimilar, with Geelong sprawling both along the coast and bay, as well as inland, unlike water-flanked Mornington. While Mornington catches the light with a good dose of glamour, Geelong has a quieter resolve and greater subregional diversity, with lighter soils making fragrant wines as well as volcanic sites producing those with dark fruit profiles and rugged minerality.

Home > Wines We Love > Nadeson Collis ‘Coda’ Sparkling NV

A unique sparkling wine drawn solely from a solera started in 2003 – think artisan Champagne, shot through with nutty sherry-like notes, but built on fruit intensity.

Producer
Lethbridge
Region

Henty
RRP

$145
Vintage

NV
Variety/Varieties

Chardonnay Pinot gris/grigio Pinot meunier Pinot noir
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

While the fizz project was originally started by Lethbridge’s Ray Nadeson and Maree Collis for home consumption, this unique sparkling wine – drawn solely from a solera started in 2003 – now vies for the honour of Australia’s most complex and fascinating sparkling wine. Think artisan Champagne, shot through with nutty sherry-like notes, but built on the fruit intensity and electric acidity of Henty fruit.

Tasting note

This is oh-so complex, reminiscent of top artisan Champagne, but distinctly individual, too. A lash of sea spray, with brittle notes of dry sherry, cracked roasted nuts aplenty, salted caramel, sourdough rye, hints of citrus peel, with brusquely tart cider apples, Comté cheese rind, dried apple… so much going on. There’s a real sense of intensity and density here, but brightly fresh and vibrant with a softer, pillowy fizz carrying the flavours along with a racy line of acid through the endless finish. This is one of the most layered and engaging bottles of fizz ever made on our shores.

Themes of this wine

Sparkling wine

There are many different ways to make sparkling wine. The most famous is the method widely associated with Champagne, where still wine is refermented in bottle with added sugar and yeast to create bubbles, then matured on the lees to create layers of flavour and textural detail. But pétillant naturel (pét-nat) or méthode ancestrale is an even older approach, with the primary ferment finishing in bottle to create the bubbles, with the result usually simpler and brighter, with less leesy complexity. Then there are more modern methods, like Charmat, where the fizz-producing ferment occurs in tank, then the wine is bottled cold to retain the bubbles, and the result is, well, bubbly wine, without any bottle-conditioned character.

Solera

A solera is a method of maturing wine from various vintages, with new material added each year to make up for what has been drawn off to be bottled. This can be done in a large vat or tank, or it can be managed over a series of smaller barrels, where wine is transferred from youngest to the oldest blend at the end of the solera, which is combination of many vintages and will be the most layered wine. This process is used for sherry for a complex and consistent result, as well as port and other fortified wines. It is also used for Champagne and sparkling wines, often adding sherry-like notes, to add as reserve wine to mix with the current vintage.

Chardonnay

With an explosion of interest over the last few decades, chardonnay is now the world’s most planted white grape. With its ability to grow in varied conditions and make everything from sparkling wine, to lean and mineral whites, to full-bodied textural expressions, it is perhaps no surprise to see Burgundy’s key white grape become so dominant.

Pinot noir

Pinot noir is one of the wine world’s most revered grapes. Notoriously fickle to grow and make, it makes what many see as the pinnacle of red wine in France’s Burgundy, but it has also found many happy homes around the world, and none more so than in Australia across our cooler viticultural regions.

Pinot meunier

Pinot meunier is a grape mainly consigned to sparkling wine production, with still red wines relatively rare. But in Australia, though the output is modest, the grape has a meaningful place as a quality grape for red wine production (alongside sparkling wine), and with a noble history that stretches back to the 1830s.

Henty

Henty spills across the extreme south-west of Victoria, with less than 200 hectares planted to vines and a decidedly cool climate, favouring riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir. While it may not be heavily planted, the region boasts some of this country’s most exciting vineyard land, largely planted to basalt soils over clay and with bracing breezes funnelling across from the Southern Ocean bringing night-time temperatures down significantly. Many would argue that it is home to two vineyards that vie to be the country’s best producers of riesling: Crawford River and Seppelt Drumborg.

2022 Lethbridge Gamay Geelong

Gamay from the Lethbridge estate vineyard, this is a classic expression of the grape, with forest berries, cherries and a flash of violets pitched in an elegant and poised expression, an undercurrent of ruggedly regional minerality making its presence felt.

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Gamay

Geelong

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Tempranillo

Geelong

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Sparkling wine

Solera

Chardonnay

Pinot noir

Pinot meunier

Henty

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