Minchella grew up on a family property in McLaren Vale, graduated in oenology and viticulture from the University of Adelaide in 2011, and built his early career across Two Hands, Rosemount and Di Fabio Estate before seven years as winemaker at The Hedonist. Overseas, his Italian education was assembled across multiple regions and mentors: Okanagan in Canada, Provence, Basilicata and then two consecutive seasons in Puglia split across wineries in Manduria and Gioia del Colle. It was in Basilicata that the deepest influence took hold – living with Dennis Verdecchia, now head winemaker at Farnese, who instilled in Minchella a precision-oriented philosophy and a passion for aglianico, greco and fiano that has never left him. Puglia, especially time at Tenuta Chiaromonte, sharpened his affection for primitivo and negroamaro. And a private back-vintage tasting spanning 1991 to 2015 at Arnaldo Caprai in Umbria – the estate that has done more than any other to establish sagrantino as a noble variety – burned itself into his memory as the kind of thing a winemaker chases for the rest of their career. “That private back vintage tasting from ‘91 to ‘15 vintages at Arnaldo Caprai is burnt in my memory and inspires me to make sagrantino,” he says. More Italian varieties, he notes, are coming.
The label is built on three convictions Minchella formed during those Italian years. First: that southern Italian varieties are serious, not merely alternative. “I wanted to show that Italy is not only about Tuscany and Piedmont and that the southern varieties can be serious, delicious and noble,” he says. Second: that those varieties suit McLaren Vale’s Mediterranean climate in a way that has been underexplored. Third: that the legacy varieties – shiraz, grenache, cabernet – may not be the most sustainable long-term, either in the vineyard or in the market. “Wines are grown, not made,” he says, a conviction he learned in Europe and has since staked a vineyard on.
“I wanted to show the potential to make wines from Italian varieties that suit the McLaren Vale terroir.”
That vineyard is the most tangible expression of the philosophy. Seven Italian varieties – including primitivo, negroamaro, greco, fiano and vermentino – planted on the winery site at 2.4 metre row width and 0.9 metre vine spacing, trained to single-arm guyot using the Simonit & Sirch methodology developed in Italy and focused on long-term vine health and sap flow. The spacing is tight by Australian standards, and deliberately so. “My theory with the tighter spacings is that although our Australian soils are the oldest in the world, the vineyards I grew up with are quite healthy and vigorous and not lacking,” he says. “I wanted to increase competition to restrict crop load and put more stress on the vines, with the intention to concentrate flavours.” The single-arm guyot reduces stored carbohydrate reserves by limiting unnecessary structural wood, while making manual shoot-thinning, leaf plucking and hand-harvesting more practical than traditional spur-pruned cordon systems allow. The southern side of the canopy is specifically leaf-plucked to manage sunlight exposure on the fruit. “I wanted to see if vineyards more in line with Italy produced better wines in McLaren Vale.”
The two wines at the core of the range – negroamaro from the Stocks Hill vineyard and primitivo from the College Block – both come from fruit Minchella has a direct hand in growing. The negroamaro is made in a fresh, medium-bodied style that draws deliberately on the lighter expressions he encountered in Puglia rather than the heavy, extracted versions that characterise much of the commercial category. The primitivo comes in two versions: a conventionally made bottling and a Naturale, which sees the wine made with zero additions and no sulphur. “I wanted to show the potential to make wines from Italian varieties that suit the McLaren Vale terroir,” he says. “To pay homage to my heritage, and to show that the southern varieties can be serious, delicious and noble.”
The family business supports the whole operation: the family owns the vines, processing and bottling; Giovanni and Oliver manage the vineyards; Fabiano and his sister Gab make and bottle the wines. It is as close to a vertically integrated family winemaking operation as the Vale has, with a lineage that runs through the Minchella family’s Italian roots and out through the red earth of McLaren Vale. “It is not the fruit that is to be adapted to his style,” as the label puts it, “but rather his style that adapts to the fruit’s expression.” The sagrantino is still coming. Watch this space.
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