Home > Wines We Love > 2024 Freeman ‘Altura Vineyard’ Furmint

The first and only Australian example of a dry wine made from the Hungarian variety furmint also happens to be an absolutely delicious drop. With its deft balance of nuance and detail against big flavours and palate presence, we can chalk this wine up as another win for Brian Freeman – one of Australia’s foremost experts in alternative varieties.

Producer
Freeman
Region

Hilltops
RRP

$30
Vintage

2004
Variety/Varieties

Furmint
Alc./Vol.

12.2%

Dr. Brian Freeman first built his reputation during his decade-long stint as the head of Wine Science at Charles Sturt University, training a generation of winemakers and grape growers – then turned theory into practice by setting up his own vineyard in the cool-climate Hilltops region of New South Wales in 1999. Since then, he’s made an array of wines from a wide range of grape varieties, both traditional and alternative – including Australia’s first plantings of corvina and rondinella, the cornerstone varieties of Italy’s Valpolicella – that are as interesting as they are delicious. The 2024 vintage marks the second release of this groundbreaking dry expression of the Hungarian variety furmint – not only a rarity on these shores, but also a variety more frequently seen in the lusciously sweet form of Tokaji.

Tasting Note

A beautiful burnished gold colour in the glass, this wine leads with a cider-like nose of bruised green apple pulp and slippery apple skins, backed with rich, unctuous notes of lanolin. Underneath this, notes of hay, clover flower, beeswax, Greek mountain tea, lemon blossom and lemon pith gradually emerge. On the palate, though, it’s fresher than the relatively rich nose suggests, with a zesty acidity that pushes those apple flavours down the palate in a broad, sherbet-like sweep – not at all linear or piercing, but definitely mouthwatering and refreshing. There’s serious flavour and fruit presence here that leads to a persistent finish – one with pronounced chalky minerality and a fine, slippery apple-skin texture. A precise touch of phenolic bitterness punctuates the finish, adding length and extra character. It’s a wine that can stand proudly next to Hungary’s best examples of dry furmint – and yet more proof that Brian Freeman is one of Australia’s masters of alternative varieties.

Themes of this wine

Furmint

Although furmint is a rarity in Australian vineyards, it has been present here for a very long time – in fact, it was probably first brought to the country as part of James Busby’s famous ‘Busby Collection’ in 1830, and the odd rogue furmint vine can still be found in old vineyards in Victoria. Despite this history, most Australian wine-lovers will know it (if they know of it at all) as the key grape variety of Hungary’s famous sweet wine region Tokaji, where controlled infection from the fungus Botrytis cinerea concentrates the grape’s sugars to a luscious nectar. Given that demand for this style of wine is (unfortunately) on the wane, a small movement of young producers in Hungary have started to make very interesting dry wines from the variety, showcasing its fundamental versatility.

Hilltops

Centred around the regional centre of Young in New South Wales, north-west of Canberra, Hilltops is (as the name suggests) a high-elevation wine region. This altitude, alongside its distance from the Pacific Ocean and the protection of the Great Dividing Range, gives it a desirably cool and continental climate, with chilly winters, warm summer days, and cool nights that help grapes keep freshness and acidity. Despite its advantageous climate, its distance from Sydney means that it has not experienced the same level of viticultural development as other cool-climate wine regions in New South Wales such as Orange, although an emerging groundswell of quality-minded producers is changing this.

Alternative varieties

Most wine consumers are familiar with only a small handful of the 1300+ grape varieties currently turned into wine. These well-known varieties are often called ‘international’ varieties because, thanks to consumer demand, they’re now grown across a wide range of climatic conditions worldwide (even if they nearly all have French origins). But there’s far more to the world of wine than pinot noir, chardonnay, and shiraz – and, as it happens, many of these relatively rare grape varieties are a better fit for Australia’s climatic conditions than the French grapes that continue to dominate our vineyard area. While many wine snobs will unthinkingly turn their nose up at varieties they feel are insufficiently ‘noble’, Australia’s wine drinkers are in general more supportive of alternative varieties than wine drinkers in other countries – thanks to the pioneering efforts of our viticultural community and institutions such as the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS). And of course, what counts as an ‘alternative’ variety can change rapidly – in the early 1990s hardly anyone in Australia had heard of pinot gris/grigio, let alone consumed any, but it’s now Australia’s third most important white grape variety by harvest weight.

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.

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Producer
Region

Canberra District Hilltops NSW/ACT Tumbarumba
RRP

$
Vintage
Variety/Varieties
Alc./Vol.

%

Home > Wines We Love > 2023 The Vinden Headcase Chenin Blanc

This chenin blanc from the Hunter valley not only challenges preconceptions about what the Hunter can achieve – it also shows a new facet of chenin blanc as an endlessly fascinating variety.

Producer
Vinden Wines
Region

Hunter Valley
RRP

$60
Vintage

2023
Variety/Varieties

Chenin blanc
Alc./Vol.

13%

The Hunter Valley is best known for its semillon-based whites – with maybe a footnote to acknowledge its pivotal role in the history of chardonnay in Australia. But there’s far more to Hunter whites than these two varieties, as this fascinating take on chenin blanc from young Hunter up-and-comer Angus Vinden demonstrates

Tasting note

This wine shows chenin blanc in an especially ripe – yet paradoxically not especially fruit-forward – frame. It’s not aromatically exuberant, giving relatively subdued notes of white nectarine, green apple, lemon zest, and yuzu flesh that later come through more strongly on the palate, with a subtle hint of brioche dough emerging from its use of bâtonnage. On the palate, the reward of that lees work becomes clear – this is a wine built more for silky, unctuous texture than it is for mere fruitiness. That silkiness is wrapped around a core of strict minerality, with a lovely saline note becoming clear on the tip of the tongue as the wine moves down the palate, driven by racy acidity. There’s plenty of weight and texture here, but you wouldn’t call it opulent or soft – more like a Sumo wrestler, with serious muscle underneath the cushioning. A fascinating example of the flexibility and intrigue offered by chenin blanc, no matter where it’s grown.

Themes of this wine

Chenin blanc

Chenin blanc is responsible for some of the longest-lived whites in the world, largely from its spiritual home in the Loire Valley. While it has been very much a bit player in Australia over the years, a renewed interest is seeing exciting expressions of chenin entering the market. It’s hard to generalise about the flavours of chenin blanc, such is the variety of expressions that are made from it, with some crisp and dry and others exotically flavoured and quite sweet. At the cooler end, flavours like green pear and lemon are common, developing into lemon curd, honeysuckle, honey, straw, cooked pear and quince the riper it gets, then botrytis can often step in with layers of toast and citrus curd and more exotic florals. The one thing that is a constant with chenin is the acidity, with the wines being typically racy and fresh even with some residual sugar.

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 8 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.

Bâttonage

Bâtonnage (to give it its proper French accent) is the process of stirring lees, the dead yeast cells that remain from fermentation, while a wine is maturing in barrel or tank. Why? Well, when those lees break down they will help to add nutty or savoury flavour and rich texture to the wine, softening some of the hard edges. It can also be used if a wine becomes a little stinky/reductive, by introducing oxygen, and it is also sometimes used to reduce the buttery flavour in chardonnay that can be produced from malolactic fermentation.

Explore Further

Winemaker Profile

Angus Vinden

Angus Vinden is a viticulturist who makes wine, not the other way around – a distinction he draws deliberately and maintains religiously. Based in Pokolbin at the family estate his parents Guy and Sandra established in 1990, Vinden now farms two vineyard sites across 13 grape varieties, operates three labels, and makes every wine from fruit he grows himself. Vinden Wines is the heritage label, rooted in classic Hunter styles. The Vinden Headcase is his more progressive expression – lighter, more textural, more experimental, drawing on the Hunter’s own pioneering tradition of elegant, medium-bodied reds rather than the heavier international styles that briefly dominated. A third label, Lignée, is a limited annual collaboration with Will Gilbert of Gilbert Family Wines in Mudgee. Across all three, the philosophy is the same: minimal intervention, wild fermentation, and the vineyard doing the heavy lifting.

Vineyard Profile

Vinden Wines – Somerset Vineyard, Pokolbin

The Hunter Valley’s Somerset Vineyard has been responsible for some landmark wines, from back in the days of Maurice O’Shea in the first half of the twentieth century, then later for Lindeman’s at its peak in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, as well as supplying fruit to Len Evans as he reshaped the Australian wine landscape. Today, Angus Vinden tends 22 hectares of vines dedicated to his family’s eponymous label, with the Hunter stalwarts of shiraz and semillon leading the way alongside verdelho, chardonnay, chenin blanc, gewürztraminer, fiano and tempranillo. Vinden has given this historic vineyard a new lease of life through a transition to organic and regenerative practices, with organic certification the ongoing goal.

Region Guide

Hunter Valley

The Hunter Valley is a paradise for visitors. Pokolbin is a good two-hour drive from Sydney (and about an hour from Newcastle), making a day trip a fairly serious endeavour, but as a result, the Hunter is incredibly well serviced with accommodation, dining and all manner of other entertainment options, from premier golf courses to hot air ballooning. It is also in dynamic good health on the wine front, with veteran estates never stronger, and a new wave adding light and shade to one of Australia’s most unique and iconic regions.

Deep Dive

Australia’s Best Chenin Blanc

Chenin blanc is the hero white variety of France’s Loire Valley, where it makes wines that range from vibrant and carefree sparkling numbers through bone-dry mineral powerhouse whites to lusciously sweet and practically immortal dessert wines. But the grape also excels outside of the France’s cool climate, being South Africa’s most important white variety – while also thriving in the heat of Western Australia’s Swan Valley, where a renaissance is in full swing. And it’s not just out west, either, with makers from South Australia also staking a claim on the variety, and exciting cooler-climate renditions starting to appear from Victoria and Tasmania. With the landscape having developed so much since our last look at chenin blanc, and autumn upon us, we thought it was an apt time to Deep Dive once again into this beguiling variety …

Wine 101

Chenin Blanc

Chenin blanc is responsible for some of the longest-lived whites in the world, largely from its spiritual home in the Loire Valley. While it has been very much a bit player in Australia over the years, a renewed interest is seeing exciting expressions of chenin entering the market, with many hailing from Western Australia.

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Rikard Wines is a story of recovery and remarkable resilience. In 2008 winemaker William Rikard-Bell was caught in an explosion in the winery he worked at in the Hunter Valley, suffering third-degree burns to over 70% of his body. Recovery from these life-threatening injuries sharpened Rikard-Bell’s focus, prompting a move to the cooler climate of Orange and the founding of his own winemaking business. His Rikard label offers a classically styled range of wines from cool-climate stalwart varieties – pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling – alongside sparkling wines, a shiraz, and a cabernet franc/merlot/malbec blend. With the refreshing elevation of Mount Canobolas as his muse and ally, Rikard-Bell’s wines are helping to define what this emerging region can offer.

Producer
Region

NSW/ACT Orange
RRP

$
Vintage
Variety/Varieties
Alc./Vol.

%

Rikard Wines is a story of recovery and remarkable resilience. In 2008 winemaker William Rikard-Bell was caught in an explosion in the winery he worked at in the Hunter Valley, suffering third-degree burns to over 70% of his body. Recovery from these life-threatening injuries sharpened Rikard-Bell’s focus, prompting a move to the cooler climate of Orange and the founding of his own winemaking business. His Rikard label offers a classically styled range of wines from cool-climate stalwart varieties – pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling – alongside sparkling wines, a shiraz, and a cabernet franc/merlot/malbec blend. With the refreshing elevation of Mount Canobolas as his muse and ally, Rikard-Bell’s wines are helping to define what this emerging region can offer.

Setting up Rikard in Orange is something of a full-circle moment for William Rikard-Bell, who started his winemaking career here in the early 2000s under Murray Smith of Canolobolas Smith. After graduating from Charles Sturt University’s wine science program in 2005, he was drawn to the Hunter Valley, where he started working for Drayton Family Wines. Tragedy struck in January 2008, when an explosion caused by sparks from welding igniting a vat of distilled grape spirit killed winemaker Trevor Drayton and boilermaker Edgar Orgo. Rikard-Bell was in the winery at the time, and suffered third-degree burns to over 70% of his body – surviving only by leaping into a nearby dam.

The accident prompted some soul-searching for Rikard-Bell during the recovery process – and some daring action not long after. In his words, it “motivated me take the risk by resigning from a job I was stagnating in and re-evaluate my goals and dreams. A return to cool climate, minimal interventionist winemaking was what excited me, as it had at the beginning of my career.” That meant a return to the Orange region, where he set out his shingle as an independent contract winemaker for established wineries. “That side of the business afforded me the opportunity to make wine from almost every vineyard in the region in a short period of time,” he says – an inside scoop that would soon pay dividends. “It didn’t take long to realise that the fruit and wines I liked most came from the higher sites on Mount Canobolas. In 2015, I was offered some beautiful Pinot Noir from 1040 metres [on Canobolas] and frankly, couldn’t say no! It was earlier than I had planned to start [my] own label, but the opportunity to make fruit like that into your own wine doesn’t come around often.” With this, the Rikard label was born.

Rikard’s growth since that first pinot has been impressive. The label now owns or manages three vineyards in the region, and as of vintage 2025 will produce all of its wines from fruit it produces itself. Much of that growth comes down to Rikard-Bell’s relentless focus on demonstrating the quality that is possible within this emerging region. “I am making wine that I want to drink,” he says. “I have no interest in making cheap, simple or mediocre wines. That doesn’t inspire me. The greatest, most alluring, complex and intriguing wines of the world inspire me, and I want to make wines like those.”

“I have no interest in making cheap, simple or mediocre wines. That doesn’t inspire me. The greatest, most alluring, complex and intriguing wines of the world inspire me, and I want to make wines like those.”

For Rikard-Bell, that potential for greatness starts with the region itself. “Orange is a unique wine region in that it is defined by altitude,” he says. “It ranges from 600 metres to 1100 metres and has a wide range of micro-climates in a relatively small area. It therefore allows every producer in the region a very different terroir to most others around them and the opportunity to create their own style, according to their own taste and chosen varieties.” For his taste, this means climbing to the cooler high reaches of Canobolas. “It’s a proper cool, continental climate where I can make cool-climate styles,” he adds. “It has adequate rainfall for dry-grown viticulture. It is established but has scope for expansion, with many sites still available to be planted to grapes.”

Having found the right terroir, the next challenge is to farm it correctly. Rikard-Bell planted in his La Cloche vineyard in 2019, and took ownership of an abandoned vineyard (aptly renamed Resurrection) in 2021 – now the plans are to farm these regeneratively. He eschews herbicides and pesticides, and has planted in native species to aid biodiversity and attract helpful insect life. Pruning is based on the Simonit and Sirch version of the Guyot–Poussard regime – a system that requires significant amounts of extra labour and knowledge compared to others. He plans to start planting mixed cover crows in the mid-rows at both vineyards as of this year.

The hard work is paying off. “We’re noticing a big improvement in fruit quality from year to year,” Rikard-Bell says. “The general health and vigour of the canopy has increased dramatically, and the vines holding their leaves much longer. We’re seeing a longer, slower ripening of fruit, thicker skins, better acid retention. In the pinot, this is manifesting into some intense tannin structure, the likes of which we don’t often see in Orange pinot noir. A lovely thing to have, and therefore we are being careful about our stalk work with this fruit. It doesn’t appear to need much. The riesling can afford longer hang time given the super high acid levels and therefore ripens into a different flavour spectrum – more apricot and melon and orange rind characters, less lime and lemon.”

While Canobolas’s altitude helps keep his fruit fresh and vibrant, its soils perhaps offer the vines too much of a good thing. “Our soils are young,” he says. “They’re deep, volcanic, basaltic soils which are relatively fertile. Fabulous for growing things, but sometimes vigour in vines can be a challenge. We need to be meticulous with our pruning, crop-load and canopy management during the growing season.” If he’s managed this vigour properly, it’s happy days for white wines. “In our wines, the climate and soils translates into a lot of fruit weight,” he adds. “In chardonnay, this is fabulous because you get wonderful acidity and intensity. Same goes for riesling.”

“I like to use multiple blending components when making our wines – different picks, clones, vineyards, winemaking techniques – to build more variation in the spectrum of flavours.”

It’s a more difficult balancing act for red wine, though. “Reds are an interesting equation,” Rikard-Bell says, “because despite lots of mid-palate weight and intensity, they can often lack structure. I wonder whether that’s because of our lower latitude and summer sunlight hours? In pinot noir, therefore, stalk inclusion is often necessary as a tannin input. This necessitates close examination of the stalk ripeness before harvest, however. Careful oak management is also necessary, and extended maceration on skins helps, too.”

In the winery, Rikard-Bell keeps things relatively simple, leaning on attention to detail over gadgetry. “We use traditional methods in the winery with modern sophistication,” he says, with the aim being “to showcase a variety’s complexity over its simplicity, always. I like to use multiple blending components when making our wines – different picks, clones, vineyards, winemaking techniques – to build more variation in the spectrum of flavours and ultimately a more delicious end product.”

This less-is-more approach requires patience: “You’ve got to give wines time to reach their natural equilibrium,” Rikard-Bell adds. “Yes, you might have to release a wine later what most wine brands do, but it means we can avoid the addition of a lot of artificial products into the wine that may hurry a wine to bottle but in the end, only reduce the quality, interest and complexity of that wine.”

Not that Rikard-Bell’s in a rush – his injury and recovery have given him a view of winemaking life that’s focused on the long game. “Life is short and vintages are few,” he says. “I want to build a legacy in Orange that my kids might want to continue and to do it sustainably, honestly, and with integrity. So, I’ll continue to surround myself with like-minded, passionate people and to enjoy what I do until I’m too old to do it.”

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Valentina Moresco grew up in a winegrowing family in Montà, Piedmont, studied viticulture and oenology in Alba – directly between Barolo and Barbaresco – and has been making wine at Krinklewood Biodynamic Vineyard in the Hunter Valley’s Broke Fordwich subregion since 2018. Now promoted to General Manager of the estate, she oversees not just the winemaking but the broader life of the farm – vineyard, grounds and livestock included – while continuing to craft a range that spans Hunter classics alongside skin-contact wines, sparkling and a non-alcoholic offering. What began as the meeting of Piedmontese tradition and New Zealand precision has become something distinctly her own: rigorous, inventive and deeply connected to a place she never expected to call home.

Producer
Region

Hunter Valley NSW/ACT
RRP

$
Vintage
Variety/Varieties
Alc./Vol.

%

Valentina Moresco grew up in a winegrowing family in Montà, Piedmont, studied viticulture and oenology in Alba – directly between Barolo and Barbaresco – and has been making wine at Krinklewood Biodynamic Vineyard in the Hunter Valley’s Broke Fordwich subregion since 2018. Now promoted to General Manager of the estate, she oversees not just the winemaking but the broader life of the farm – vineyard, grounds and livestock included – while continuing to craft a range that spans Hunter classics alongside skin-contact wines, sparkling and a non-alcoholic offering. What began as the meeting of Piedmontese tradition and New Zealand precision has become something distinctly her own: rigorous, inventive and deeply connected to a place she never expected to call home.

Moresco comes from a winegrowing family in Montà, Piedmont, and studied viticulture and oenology in Alba – directly between the star regions of Barolo and Barbaresco. Rather than returning to her roots after graduating from the University of Turin in 2014, she headed to New Zealand, where the winemaking approach differs starkly from the Italian tradition. “In Italy, especially in Piedmont where I am from, winemakers are deeply rooted in their ways, often reluctant to change,” she says. “However, my craft was refined in New Zealand, where I learned the art of precision in winemaking. This balance – between tradition and technical mastery – defines my approach. I have learned to challenge convention and question long-standing practices.” Vintages in Germany and Australia followed before her first Hunter Valley harvest in 2016. By October 2017 she was assistant winemaker at Krinklewood; by March 2018, head winemaker. She has not looked back.

“Since I came to Australia, I have only worked in the Hunter Valley. The climate here can be demanding, but the challenge is part of what makes it so rewarding.”

The Hunter suited her from the start, despite – or because of – its demands. “The climate here can be demanding, but the challenge is part of what makes it so rewarding,” she says. “The Hunter has a deep winemaking heritage – there is the old, the traditional, the ‘we have always done it this way’ – but also a new wave of young winemakers eager to take the best of the past and refine it for the future.” Krinklewood’s certified organic and biodynamic credentials – farming to those standards since 2005, certified since 2007 – aligned perfectly with Moresco’s philosophy. “This approach has had a profound impact on the fruit, enhancing its purity and balance while allowing the vineyard to truly express its unique character.”

Her recent promotion to General Manager has deepened that connection still further. Alongside the winemaking, she now oversees the vineyard, grounds and the estate’s livestock – cattle and sheep – giving her a genuinely holistic view of how all parts of the farm interact with the wines. “This has given me a deeper involvement in the day-to-day life of the farm,” she says. It is, as she describes it, a logical extension of the belief that great wine is an expression of a whole living system rather than a winery process.

“Semillon presents a completely different challenge. All you need to do is hard work in the vineyard, choosing the perfect picking date, getting the chemistry just right, and executing the winemaking with absolute precision and focus – and then you’re done!”

The wines reflect that breadth. The core range spans semillon, chardonnay, verdelho and shiraz, made with the precision Moresco learned in New Zealand and the respect for variety she absorbed in Italy. The Basket Press Semillon – made with extended time on lees in barrel to build texture and richness while preserving the variety’s signature elegance – is a particular focus. “Precision is key,” she says of semillon. “Coming from a red winemaking background in Italy, I quickly realised that semillon presents a completely different challenge – one with little room for error. All you need to do is hard work in the vineyard, choosing the perfect picking date, getting the chemistry just right, and executing the winemaking with absolute precision and focus – and then you’re done. Nothing is left to chance; you create your own destiny with this wine.”

The Sauvage Orange skin-contact wine has been the most iterative project in the range, dialled in across successive vintages through trial and genuine error. What began as an oak-fermented gewürztraminer that accidentally underwent malolactic fermentation – the conversion of sharper malic acid to softer lactic acid – in bottle, producing something pét-nat-like that people loved but Moresco knew she could improve, has evolved through stainless steel experimentation and back to 100% oak fermentation and maturation to find its balance. “It really highlighted the importance of giving each wine the time and environment it needs to develop its true character,” she says. For the current vintage, the Sauvage Orange returns to 100% gewürztraminer – a change from the recent verdelho-dominant blend – and is being made in collaboration with an artist who will use the grape skins themselves to create the label painting. Carbonic maceration – a technique where whole uncrushed grapes ferment in a carbon dioxide-rich environment, producing wines that are light, fruity and low in tannin – is being trialled on a pinot noir from Orange. The non-alcoholic wine program, made using a gentle dealcoholisation process to remove alcohol while preserving the wine’s flavour and structure, is gaining significant momentum.

Moresco is a rationalist at heart, but not a cold one. “I chase perfection in every wine I make,” she says. “I refuse to settle for mediocrity or compromise. I craft wines that I love to drink.” The longer-term vision is increasingly Italian in character: small parcels of nebbiolo and barbera adapted to the Hunter Valley conditions, collaboration with artists and other creatives to tell stories through the labels, and wines that are, as she puts it, “authentic, expressive and full of personality.” One of her biggest dreams is still to convince the owner to plant nebbiolo. Given what she has already achieved at Krinklewood, it would be unwise to bet against her.

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What happens when you take two experienced hospitality professionals with no formal winemaking training, get them to fall in love with both winemaking and Sicilian grape varieties, and let them ferment wine in traditional Indian clay vessels? You might end up with something like Majama Wines, an exciting new Hunter Valley-based project by Rojer Rathod and Millie Shorter, whose second vintage release – a tight lineup of zibbibo, inzolia, and nero d’avola – has already turned heads in the wine trade. With a minimal-intervention philosophy in the cellar that’s been dialled in with a clear focus on Sicilian varieties and fermentation in clay, as well as some of the most striking packaging currently on shelves, Rathod and Shorter are setting themselves up to become a striking new voice in the Australian wine landscape.

Producer
Region

Hunter Valley Murray Darling NSW/ACT Victoria
RRP

$
Vintage
Variety/Varieties
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What happens when you take two experienced hospitality professionals with no formal winemaking training, get them to fall in love with both winemaking and Sicilian grape varieties, and let them ferment wine in traditional Indian clay vessels? You might end up with something like Majama Wines, an exciting new Hunter Valley-based project by Rojer Rathod and Millie Shorter, whose second vintage release – a tight lineup of zibbibo, inzolia, and nero d’avola – has already turned heads in the wine trade. With a minimal-intervention philosophy in the cellar that’s been dialled in with a clear focus on Sicilian varieties and fermentation in clay, as well as some of the most striking packaging currently on shelves, Rathod and Shorter are setting themselves up to become a striking new voice in the Australian wine landscape.

Rojer Rathod and Millie Shorter are partners in both life and wine. They met in the Hunter Valley, where Rathod works as a winemaker for M & J Becker Wines and Shorter works in wine sales and textile design. “We really wanted to make our wine label as a collaborative creative project to work on together,” they say. “We both have our creative passions and wanted to create something where we both get to express ourselves and build our future family business. We really couldn’t have started our label without each other and our combined skill sets.” Neither Rathod nor Shorter has formal winemaking training, although both have learned on the job by working in wineries, and Rathod has commenced formal studies this year.

Their backgrounds and skillsets have narrowed the focus of Majama Wines. Both Rathod and Shorter share a love of Sicilian wines made from the island’s traditional grape varieties – one they credit to their experience working with sommelier Pat Hester at Yellow Billy Restaurant. Rathod comes from Gujarat, India, and his background informs not only the label’s name – majāmā being the Gujarati for ‘happy’ or ‘fun’ – but also the fermentation vessels the pair work with, the traditional clay kothi used in India as water vessels. Shorter’s background as a graphic designer with a focus on textiles gives the wine labels and bottles – made, unusually, out of clay – a cohesive visual identity. A shared interest in minimal-intervention winemaking practises seals the deal.

“We make our wines with a minimal-intervention approach, using hand picked fruit and wild fermentation without fining or filtering,” Rathod and Shorter say. “We aim to express the single-vineyard fruit in its purest form, while preserving as much aroma and flavour as possible.” No additives are used, with the exception of a touch of sulphur: “We only add sulphur at the time of bottling – around 30 parts per million. We also age our wines in clay amphorae, and we use clay bottles which convey the story of the ancient winemaking techniques [we use] and also encourage the consumers to reuse the bottles for other purposes.” Their use of kothi as fermentation and ageing vessels – currently employed for two of their three wines – differentiates them from the rest of the natural wine scene in Australia, but they’re quick to credit their peers as inspiration. “We’re lucky to work with other young winemakers who share a similar philosophy of winemaking,” they add, “like James Becker [of M & J Becker] and Peta Kotz [of Sabi Wabi]. The new generation of winemakers in the Hunter Valley are introducing new varieties and blending different winemaking techniques.”

“One of the best things we did was reach out to Sicilian wine makers and ask about their techniques. Our wine is all the better for getting their advice, even if the language barrier had its challenges.”

Finding fruit to suit Majama’s Sicilian focus is a challenge. “Because we work with Sicilian varieties, we have had to source our fruit from multiple regions,” Rathod and Shorter say. “We get our zibbibo from the Hunter Valley. It is on the rarer side to find, and late ripening. We’ve had a few brushes with storms and bad weather conditions but have still found the fruit is great quality. We transport our nero d’avola and inzolia from the Murray Darling region which adds some logistical challenges. The Mediterranean climate down there is more suited to those varieties.” While the pair’s first release, the 2023 vintage, comprised a Tumbarumba pinot noir and a carbonic ‘nouveau’ syrah from Hunter fruit, Sicilian varieties are now the focus, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. “We can’t wait to get our hands on more Sicilian varieties,” they add. “They are currently very rarely grown here and hard to get. In particular, we want to work with carricante and nerello mascalese.”

Beyond the logistics issues that are usual for small winemaking operations sourcing fruit from multiple regions, Rathod and Shorter’s chosen focus poses its own unique difficulties. “Getting our amphorae made in India and shipped has probably been our biggest challenge,” they say. “Learning to get out of nature’s way and let the wild yeast ferment and flourish is probably the hardest thing to master. One of the best things we did was reach out to Sicilian wine makers and ask about their techniques. Our wine is all the better for getting their advice, even if the language barrier had its challenges.”

Rathod and Shorter’s ambitions with Majama are relatively modest. “It’s about creating a lifestyle for ourselves that we love, and having the freedom to create something that reflects us,” they say. “We want to grow our own grapes eventually and live on the land. We are really interested in minimal intervention in all aspects of grape growing and wine making – doing the least harm to the environment and ultimately allowing the fruit to shine is what we want. Combined with ancient winemaking techniques like using clay amphoras, we are looking to create our own niche.” Judging by the reception their second vintage has received, they’re already well on their way to claiming a unique position in the Australian wine landscape.

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New South Wales’s Riverina region cops a bit of a bad rap from wine lovers. The second-largest wine region in Australia in terms of volume, its 17,000 hectares under vine pump out 15% of the country’s wine grapes every year, nearly all of which get turned into mass-market wines such as the infamous Yellow Tail. With the exception of a handful of quality-minded producers such as R. Paulazzo, and some innovative projects from larger-scale growers like Calabria Family Wines (who are experimenting with Mediterranean varieties better suited to the region’s climate) and De Bortoli (whose famous Noble One botrytis wine comes from Riverina fruit), the region is generally seen as a wasteland in terms of fine wine. It’s a perception that Peter Valeri’s Via Pola project is trying its utmost to rewrite. With just two wines under its belt – a fiano and a montepulciano, both of which made their debut in vintage 2024 – it has already established itself as one of the most exciting new projects from the region in decades.

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NSW/ACT Riverina
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New South Wales’s Riverina region cops a bit of a bad rap from wine lovers. The second-largest wine region in Australia in terms of volume, its 17,000 hectares under vine pump out 15% of the country’s wine grapes every year, nearly all of which get turned into mass-market wines such as the infamous Yellow Tail. With the exception of a handful of quality-minded producers such as R. Paulazzo, and some innovative projects from larger-scale growers like Calabria Family Wines (who are experimenting with Mediterranean varieties better suited to the region’s climate) and De Bortoli (whose famous Noble One botrytis wine comes from Riverina fruit), the region is generally seen as a wasteland in terms of fine wine. It’s a perception that Peter Valeri’s Via Pola project is trying its utmost to rewrite. With just two wines under its belt – a fiano and a montepulciano, both of which made their debut in vintage 2024 – it has already established itself as one of the most exciting new projects from the region in decades.

Valeri’s wine journey started in the Riverina. He comes from a family of Italian immigrant grape growers – his grandparents, Anna and Pietro Valeri, immigrated to the region in the 1950s and set up a vineyard here. Valeri eagerly took up the family trade, studying wine science and viticulture at Charles Sturt University before cutting his teeth at some of the larger producers in the Riverina. The obligatory overseas vintages swiftly followed – but perhaps owing to his underdog Riverina background, those were in less obvious regions such as Canada’s Okanagan Valley and Romania’s Timiș County. Once back in Australia, Valeri largely stuck to working in the Riverina, with the exception of a vintage with Best’s in Western Victoria.

“I never really considered setting up a vineyard anywhere else,” Valeri says of Via Pola’s home in the Riverina. “While the region is more widely known for its commercial wines, I believe there’s untapped potential here, especially when focusing on varieties that are ideally suited to our warm climate.”

Part of the impetus behind setting up Via Pola came in the form of a local viticultural crisis. “It is no secret that things are challenging at the moment, particularly here in the Riverina,” Valeri says. ‘Challenging’ may be an understatement for the region’s grape-growers. Prices for their grapes plummeted to historic lows of $150 per tonne in 2024 – roughly fifteen cents per finished bottle’s worth of grapes, well below the cost of production. “With the challenging market conditions for grape growers locally, I saw an opportunity to pivot and do things differently,” he says, “focusing on Italian varieties that thrive in warm climates like the Riverina.”

“With the challenging market conditions for grape growers locally, I saw an opportunity to pivot and do things differently, focusing on Italian varieties that thrive in warm climates like the Riverina.”

Perhaps appropriately, it turns out that the varieties that Valeri has planted in the Via Pola vineyard are ones from the southern half of Italy, where his grandparents and most of the other first-generation Italian immigrants who shaped the region come from. “Many of the varieties suited to the Riverina come from a region in Italy [Abruzzo] where my grandparents were born,” he says. “It’s a connection to my heritage that’s incredibly exciting, especially when I think about how my grandfather was making wines from varieties like montepulciano and pecorino in Italy, and now I have them growing in our vineyard here in Australia.” The name of the vineyard itself – after the street his grandfather grew up on – reflects this Italian connection, and the vineyard is a family affair, with Valeri’s father Tony helping plant in the new vines.

While Via Pola’s varietal mix pays homage to the Italian immigrant farmers who built the Riverina’s wine industry, the viticultural methods are anything but the norm in this flood-irrigated, hot region that has historically practiced conventional agriculture. “I aim to be sustainable in everything I do,” Valeri says. “The vineyard recently received its sustainability certification which is an important step in the journey. The vineyard is also managed organically, and I am working towards achieving organic certification in the near future. It is always front of mind how the decisions we make today will impact the vineyard and the environment in the years to come.”

Quality also drives Valeri’s viticulture at Via Pola. “We developed the Via Pola vineyard from scratch with the aim of doing as much as possible to increase quality,” Valeri says, “whether that be hand pruning to better control bud numbers and optimise sap flow or selecting varieties that are ideally suited to the climate and soil, through to managing the vineyard organically to increase biodiversity. It is exciting to see how some of the efforts and hard work in the vineyard manifest in the wines.”

“I think the most significant changes I have seen is an alignment of physiological ripeness with what I consider ideal sugar and acid levels,” he adds. “By giving the vines an environment where they can thrive, they reach flavour ripeness at an ideal Baumé while still holding plenty of natural acidity. This balance is key to the fresh, bright, fruit forward style of wines that Via Pola produces.”

“My grandfather was making wines from varieties like montepulciano and pecorino in Italy, and now I have them growing in our vineyard here in Australia.”

By focusing on quality over yields, Via Pola provides a roadmap out of the race to the bottom that has trapped the region’s growers in a vicious cycle of higher yields, lower quality, and lower prices. In this regard, the project isn’t dissimilar to some of the new projects such as Ricca Terra and Delinquente that have shaken up the industry in the similarly farmed (and similarly named) Riverland region of South Australia.

It helps that the resulting wines are delicious, made with a deft touch that lets the fruit speak of its Riverina origins. “Although I aim to use as little winemaking artifact as possible when making the wines, there are at times certain techniques which I think enhance or highlight varietal characters,” Valeri says. “I play around with things such as a skin soak on the fiano pre-ferment. I really like the intensity of fruit and mouthfeel it gives to the wine. In the montepulciano, a portion of the wine undergoes carbonic maceration. It adds another layer of complexity, and I am seeing some spice characters and a jammy red fruit intensity which I believe compliments the variety.”

Other varieties are starting to produce enough fruit to make saleable quantities of wine. “This vintage, I am making an amber style vermentino which has been fermented on skins that is looking great,” Valeri says. “It is certainly a contrasting style within the brand but with such a small amount of vermentino available this season I had to give it a go.” Beyond that, Valeri’s open-minded and optimistic about the possibilities of his vineyard and label. “The wines will evolve and grow as each year,” he says. “I am always striving to improve and tweak things to get the very best out of every vintage. It would be really cool to see Via Pola Wines in five to ten years gain some more awareness in the market, and a cult following as a producer of exciting alternative varietal wines.”

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