2025 Scarborough ‘Offshoot’ Tempranillo Joven Hunter Valley

Home > Wines We Love > 2025 Scarborough ‘Offshoot’ Tempranillo Joven

Is this wine particularly ‘varietal’? Nope. Is this wine unfeasibly delicious? Hell yes. This juicy, easygoing tempranillo isn’t here to teach you about what tempranillo should taste like – but it has more than enough interest and character to keep you drinking after the first glass.

Producer
Scarborough Wine Co.
Region

Hunter Valley
RRP

$25
Vintage

2025
Variety/Varieties

Tempranilo
Alc./Vol.

12.9%

Made in a young, fresh, and inviting style, this tempranillo – made from fruit from the Vineyard of the Year Award shortlisted Scarborough on Hermitage site – is designed for drinking, not thinking. Yet despite its approachability, this wine shows a savoury signature of Hunter Valley terroir that gives it more depth than the average juicy, slurpable red.

Tasting note

This wine is aromatically inviting from the get-go, leading with lilts of rose and subtle musk. On the palate, it sluices into a thirst-slaking riot of jubey ripe watermelon, watermelon rind, crunchy pomegranate, and pale shades of cherry. Earthy licks of nori, iodine, and dried herbs rescue this wine from pure ‘fruit bomb’ territory – aided by some crunchy green jalapeño lending perky definition, and a faint sprinkle of freshly torn dill for interest. Classic, mid-weighted tempranillo this ain’t – wonderfully and unashamedly so, with the variety’s prettier alter ego encouraged by whisking the skins off the fermenting juice part-way through fermentation. The end result is spring incarnate – and very well-made for the genre of juicy, smashable light red. Pair this one only with a sense of giddy abandon.

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.

Joven

In Spanish, joven simply means “young” – and that’s exactly what this style of wine is all about. A joven wine is bottled soon after fermentation, without spending time ageing in oak barrels. The focus is on bright, fresh fruit flavours, juicy texture, and easy-drinking appeal. Think of it as the “drink now” version of a wine – vibrant, approachable, and made to be enjoyed while it’s still full of youthful energy. You’ll often find joven reds in regions like Rioja or Ribera del Duero, showing off pure, lively fruit rather than the deeper, savoury notes that come from barrel ageing.

Hunter Valley

The Hunter Valley is Australia’s oldest wine region, shading Western Australia’s Swan Valley by a bit less than a decade. Those first plantings were somewhat furtive, with eight hectares in the ground by 1823 on the banks of the Hunter River in what is now the Dalwood/Gresford area, between Maitland and Singleton. Its role as the country’s first wine region means it has also been a nexus of Australian wine industry power – for both good (see Maurice O’Shea’s visionary winemaking work, which went on to define much of how we drink today) and ill (see the dilution of Hunter Valley character and quality as wine brands such as Lindeman’s, Rosemount and Wyndham Estate became monoliths untethered from their regional origins). Having been an unintentional casualty of the corporatisation and decline of Australian wine megabrands, though, the Hunter is now going through a renaissance, with a cohort of exciting young producers redefining what this region is capable of, and Australian winedrinkers rediscovering the virtues of aged Hunter semillon and mid-weight, spicy Hunter shiraz.

Home > Wines We Love > 2022 Nocturne Rosé

A riot of red fruits, tangerine and floral notes, with a properly dry but agreeably textural palate. This is benchmark rosé.

Producer
Nocturne
Region

Margaret River
RRP

$35
Vintage

2022
Variety/Varieties

Sangiovese Tempranilo
Alc./Vol.

12.5%

Julian Langworthy has a big ‘day job’ running the show for Margaret River’s Deep Woods, but he finds enough time to fashion one of the West’s most exciting small labels. His Nocturne rosé has become a benchmark in short time, and the 2022 is stellar, a riot of red fruits, tangerine and floral notes, with a properly dry but agreeably textural palate.

Tasting note

This is mainly sangiovese (88%), with a sliver of tempranillo (8%) and the balance in grenache, though the latter isn’t on the label. A classically pale colour here, though a step up from the ultra-frail Provence-styled wines of today, more a light dusky rose gold. The nose is lifted and fragrant, with aromas of wild red berries, pomegranate, tangerine peel, white peach and rose petals. This is dry but far from austere, with a light plump of texture giving a suppleness in the mid-palate, some cherry and redcurrant notes joining the fray. A subtly persistent line of acidity gives this shape through the finish, dry, savoury and long on flavour.

Themes of this wine

Rosé

From its spiritual home in Provence, in southern France, rosé can be both democratically affordable and dizzyingly expensive, but it rarely slips into the sordid or gets hung up on being too serious. It maintains a broad welcoming smile. It says, drink me. It says, relax, have fun. Those bottles of rosy-tinged sunshine have been exported to all corners of the globe in their legion, and they have found their mark, fashioning the expectations of drinkers and shaping the decisions of winemakers. But rosé is breaking those shackles, with wines varying in shades and from a vast array of varieties, some bold and rich, some savoury and mineral, and with different applications, from those demanding food to those that shrug off the idea of interrupting the fun times.

Sangiovese

Sangiovese is Italy’s most important grape, by both volume and reputation, and it has travelled the world, establishing serious outposts across the New World. In Australia, sangiovese didn’t really start making inroads until the late 1980s, but with improved genetic material, it is now making quite an impression. The key flavour component mentioned when people talk about sangiovese is cherry, generally red, but sometimes black, with that primary profile generally accented with savoury notes of dried berries, hardy herbs, dried earth, leather and cedary notes.

Tempranillo

Tempranillo is unarguably Spain’s most recognisable variety, forming the bedrock of that country’s most famous red wines, as well as being one of one of the five key grapes from Portugal’s emblematic fortified – Port. In Australia, it has made a meaningful mark, but with limited genetic vine material, the potential for the grape is exponentially bigger, and with new clones now online that potential is starting to be fulfilled. The flavours of tempranillo naturally vary depending on ripeness, both red and darker fruits are common, with plum, blackberry and cherry common descriptors. Those fruit flavours are typically accompanied by savoury notes, often leather, tobacco, woodsy herbs and spice notes, with cola as another notable descriptor.

Margaret River

If you’re after a wine region with a healthy dose of conspicuous glamour, then Margaret River has it all. Three hours south of Perth, ‘Margs’ is littered with iconic wineries, many with dazzling cellar doors and world-class restaurants. And then there’s the abundant sunshine, and the beaches – oh, those beaches… It’s a beautiful, beautiful place, and for a young wine region it’s very mature, with well-established paths to success built largely on the twin pillars of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon (et al). Names like Cullen, Moss Wood, Woodlands, Leeuwin Estate and Vasse Felix feel like they’re etched in stone, but in the last little while, smaller players have been making their mark.

2025 Scarborough ‘Offshoot’ Tempranillo Joven Hunter Valley

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Tempranillo

Joven

Hunter Valley

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Rosé

Sangiovese

Tempranillo

Margaret River

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