Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Greenhill Wines Pinot Meunier Blanc de Noir Brut

Sparkling wines made only from pinot meunier are a relative rarity here in Australia – but this elegant, detailed, and delicious wine makes a compelling argument that they should be more common. Roll over, pinot noir – and tell chardonnay the news.

Producer
Greenhill Wines
Region

Adelaide Hills
RRP

$44
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Pinot meunier
Alc./Vol.

12.8%

Pinot meunier – a fascinating variant of pinot noir – is a bit of an underdog variety. It’s actually the most widely-planted variety in Champagne, but what it has in hectares there it lacks in prestige, often being dismissed by the Champenois as a mere ‘filler’ blending variety for adding fruitiness and softness to the region’s wines. That perception is slowly changing in Champagne, thanks to the success of some high-profile 100% pinot meunier sparkling wines such as Jérôme Prévost’s ‘Les Beguines’. Of course, we Australians love an underdog – and if you need any proof that this variety can work its magic here in Australia, look no further than Greenhill Wines’ 2021 Blanc de Noir, which has spent twenty-one months on lees before disgorgement.

Tasting Note

A nose of crisp red apples, pithy apple skin, lemon curd, pastry crust, and bright fresh raspberry, backed by savoury and earthy tones of spent coffee grounds and bone broth. Beautifully fresh and detailed on the palate – driven by bright acidity, with a delicate mousse and lots of high-toned fruit flavour. A gentle nutty depth and intriguing hint of earthy bitterness from the lees ageing emerges on the finish, adding a complexity that makes the wine feel gastronomic. There’s a charming balance here between the fruity generosity of pinot meunier and the layered complexity that time on lees during secondary fermentation brings. This isn’t an imposingly serious wine – you could happily serve it as an apéritif – but it’s not lacking in depth or interest if you want to go looking for it. This is quietly virtuosic winemaking at its best.

Themes of this wine

Adelaide Hills

The Adelaide Hills is a young winegrowing region by South Australian standards, but it is a richly fertile one. The push to plant vines in the Hills was led by some of Australia’s most established and famous names – Croser, Henschke, Shaw and Smith, Knappstein, Weaver – and while they are all still very much major players, the Hills has also been a hotbed for the avant-garde, being the cradle of the natural wine movement in this country. Today, that lo-fi, organic-centric movement – with Basket Range as its spiritual home – has flourished, and it happily shares space with the established order. There are now over 50 cellar doors in the Hills, and it is also well served with restaurants.

Piccadilly Valley

The Adelaide Hills has two official subregions, Lenswood and Piccadilly Valley, with the former to the north and the latter extending south. The midpoint, where they share a small border, has Basket Range to the west, with the larger region extending around and beyond both subregions. Both Piccadilly Valley and Lenswood have the highest and coolest sites in the Hills, with chardonnay, pinot noir and sauvignon blanc the key varieties.

Pinot meunier

Pinot meunier is a variety 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 a noble history that stretches back to the 1830s.

Blanc de noir(s)

Literally ‘white from black’, this French phrase usually refers to a style of white sparkling wine made from dark-skinned grapes such as pinot noir. As all of the colour in these grapes resides in the skins, a winemaker can press them gently to create a mostly-clear juice that will then become wine. A small number of still white wines made from dark-skinned varieties can be found in Australia – but the vast majority of Australian wines labelled with this très français term will be sparkling.

Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Seppelt ‘Drumborg’ Pinot Meunier

From one of Victoria’s great vineyard sites – a brace of red fruits are spiced with white pepper and cypress notes, with a supple, bright and fresh palate, equal parts silky and vibrant.

Producer
Seppelt
Region

Henty
RRP

$36
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Pinot meunier
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

Seppelt’s Drumborg is one of Victoria’s great vineyard sites. Perhaps best known for riesling, pinot meunier thrives in the cool conditions of Henty, with this Clare Dry’s first release as the Seppelt senior winemaker. A brace of red fruits are spiced with white pepper and cypress notes, with a supple, bright and fresh palate, equal parts silky and vibrant.

Tasting note

Herbal notes, with an almost cypress pitch, are joined on the nose with smashed marasca cherries, macerated strawberries and dried cranberries, some celery salt and white pepper adding savoury punctuation. This drinks in the supple mould, with a gentle tug of tannin and acid giving definition, as you might expect from pinot noir, and though pinot meunier can tend to the less complex than its more noble cousin, this mounts a pretty compelling case for equal billing.

Themes of this wine

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.

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.

2021 Greenhill Wines Pinot Meunier Blanc de Noir Brut Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills)

Tasting Note

Themes of this wine

Adelaide Hills

Piccadilly Valley

Pinot meunier

Blanc de noir(s)

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Pinot meunier

Henty

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Sparkling wine

Solera

Chardonnay

Pinot noir

Pinot meunier

Henty

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