South Australia Archives - Page 4 of 20 - Young Gun of Wine

2022 Smallfry ‘Tangerine Dream’

‘Orange’ wine with a perfect balance between savoury tension, in both flavour and feel, with citrus peel and subdued blossom flecked with warm spices and earthy notes, a prudent amount of grip adding structure.

2021 Coriole Sangiovese

An exceptional release from the sangiovese touchstone in this country, this is an effortless affair, displaying the classic combination of cherries, woodsy herbs and earthiness, with a bright but typically savoury finish.

2022 Thistledown ‘The Vagabond’ Grenache

The devotion of Giles Cooke MW and Fergal Tynan MW to grenache is on display here with the full gamut of grenache flavours from wild red fruits and florals to an earthy growl of old vine fruit, with a natural tannic spine supporting.

2022 Smallfry ‘Starry Starry Night’ Cinsault

This is a cinsault to get people talking about cinsault. Pitched in a very of the moment midweight style, this sports a riot of red berries paired with spice and dusty minerality, a fine but engagingly sandy tannin cleaning up the finish.

2022 Italian Plastic ‘Blush Pinot Gris

From the Alpha Box & Dice crew, this is a skinsy take on pinot gris that takes the coppery ‘ramato’ inspiration into deeply coloured and flavourful territory, with notes of pear, guava, peach and watermelon and a palate rolling into a gently grippy and textural zone.

Alan Varney

Alan Varney’s journey has taken him from a childhood just outside of New York City around the world, eventually landing in McLaren Vale for a decade before settling down for good on the edge of Adelaide’s southern suburbs with McLaren Vale on his doorstep. His first solo wine was made with a tonne of fruit a decade or so ago, but it was from the 2017 vintage that he started to build a suite that would be released a couple of years later. Varney makes wine across four ranges, with some limited release and experimental wines, a pink gin, and the Entrada wines (bright everyday wines for the table) orbiting around the Essentials range, with classic and emerging varieties featuring. All the wines are pitched to feature variety and site at the fore, with only old oak employed.

Tony Zafirakos & Maddison Park-Neilson

Aristotelis Ke Anthoula is Tony Zafirakos’s homage to genuine garage winemaking, as his parents taught him growing up in Sydney. While not all backyard wine passes muster, theirs was one that was much loved by friends and family, which is all the more remarkable given that they never used sulphur. Today, the production has increased somewhat, and the fruit source is no longer the produce market, but the philosophy of his parents continues to this day, with the aim to make high-quality wines with no additions that are not “too polished”. Sourcing fruit from across New South Wales and the Riverland, the wines range from skinsy, pulpy whites, pét-nats and juicy light reds, along with a take on Retsina and a vermouth flavoured with calendula and citrus.

Marcus Radny

Marcus Radny jumped from a stellar career as a sommelier into the winemaking game. That’s not much of a strange story, granted, but going from head sommelier at Vue de Monde to making cask wine is not that way the story normally unfolds. Radny’s Gonzo Vino specialises in modern wines of character and effortless drinkability, and all are packaged in electrically colourful and loud casks and cans. The fruit is sourced from Ashley Ratcliff’s Riverland vineyards, with low tannin reds and lightly skinsy whites joined by rosé and a pair of fizzy cans, one white, one rosé.

2022 Smallfry ‘Tangerine Dream’ Barossa Valley
‘Orange’ wine with a perfect balance between savoury tension, in both flavour and feel, with citrus peel and subdued blossom flecked with warm spices and earthy notes, a prudent amount of grip adding structure.