NV Nadeson Collis ‘Inception’ Brut Nature Henty

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A sparkling wine 20 years in the making, built on a solera, an idea borrowed from sherry-making, and made with zero dosage, so all the richness comes from the grapes and time. It’ll please a crowd, and reward quiet contemplation too.

Producer
Nadeson Collis
Region

Henty
RRP

$68
Vintage

NV
Variety/Varieties

Chardonnay
Alc./Vol.

12%

Apple skins and roasted lemon, with brioche and a briny, slightly nutty edge. Bone dry, but there’s richness in there too. It’ll please a crowd, but pause over a glass and there’s a lot to think about: layered, complex and hard to put your finger on.

Ray Nadeson and Maree Collis own Lethbridge Wines in Geelong, and Nadeson Collis is their sparkling label, the newest member of the family. They began as research scientists, with PhDs in medicine and chemistry, before making wine their permanent focus in 2003, and the Lethbridge home vineyard has been a finalist in our Vineyard of the Year Awards. Their winery is a creative space, with small-volume wines made everywhere from their own vineyard to other labels exploring grapes from far-flung regions. That experimental, adventurous DNA is all over this wine.

Most of it is chardonnay from the 2022 vintage, grown in Drumborg in Henty, one of Australia’s coolest wine regions. The grapes are whole-bunch pressed and fermented in barriques and foudre, then aged in oak for 13 months before going to bottle. The remaining 11% comes from a solera, a perpetual blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier that Ray and Maree started in 2006, twenty years ago, and top up every vintage. It’s an idea borrowed from fino sherry making, and it adds that preserved or roasted lemon and nutty depth you can taste in the glass.

The label says Brut Nature, which means zero dosage: nothing is added to sweeten or soften it, so the richness comes from only the grapes and time. After more than three years on lees (the spent yeast cells left over after fermentation, which add complexity to the wine), the wine is disgorged in small batches to keep it fresh. This is the second disgorgement of this blend, and just 996 bottles were released.

Tasting note

Apple skins and roasted lemons lead the way, with brioche and a briny, oyster-shell edge. The nose feels closer to a good cool-climate still chardonnay than a mainstream sparkling wine: greengage plum, lime blossom, a hint of honeydew, and a faint suggestion of toasted almonds. There’s a slightly funky, saline note too, a bit of fino sherry DNA from the solera. The palate is layered and complex, with crisp white peach and waves of flavour driven down the tongue by rippling acidity, finishing chalky, with a very gastronomic touch of bitterness. That might make it sound a little too serious, but don’t be put off. There’s plenty of joyous deliciousness to be found in the glass.

When to drink

This one’s a genuine crowd-pleaser, but it’s just as happy alone with your thoughts, and it does both jobs well. Serve it ice-cold as a celebratory aperitif and it will absolutely crush it, or let the bottle sit out of the fridge for a little while before you open it and you’ll get a bit more from it, ideally from a regular wine glass rather than a flute. It’s a serious wine that just happens to be sparkling, so save it for date night, or for impressing the in-laws when you’re invited over for dinner. It doesn’t need food to be enjoyed, and we don’t get precious about pairing anyway. But if that’s your thing, it’s equally adept as an entrée or an encore to your annual festive spread. Think fridge-cool prawns and cocktail sauce at noon, or some ripe washed-rind cheese in the lazy late afternoon, a welcome palate cleanser while you raise a glass to the supreme versatility of good fizz.

Themes of this wine

Solera

Most non-vintage Champagne is blended from a base of the current vintage plus reserve wines (vins de réserve) from earlier years. These are usually stored separately by vintage, and often by variety or parcel, in tanks, barrels or magnums, then selected and proportioned as needed for consistency and complexity.

Some producers, particularly smaller growers, use a perpetual reserve (réserve perpétuelle) instead. It’s a simplified, single-vessel version of a solera: a portion is drawn off each year for blending and the vessel is topped up with new wine, so over time it becomes a multi-vintage blend that adds depth and continuity. It’s sometimes loosely called a solera, but it isn’t the multi-tier, fractional system used for sherry, and it remains a minority approach rather than the norm for non-vintage Champagne blending. Here, a perpetual blend started in 2006 supplies a small portion of the final wine, but its influence runs through the whole thing.

Brut Nature/Zero Dosage

Most sparkling wines get a dosage: a small addition of sugar, dissolved in wine, added after disgorgement to balance the acidity. Brut Nature, also known as Zero Dosage, means none at all, so the wine is bone dry and nothing is left to hide behind. It’s a style that asks a lot of the fruit, which needs to be ripe and well-balanced, and of the winemaking, but done well it gives some of the most expressive and food-friendly sparkling wines there are.

Henty

Henty sits in the far south-west of Victoria, near Portland, and it’s one of Australia’s coolest wine regions. The Southern Ocean keeps the climate cool and maritime, so grapes ripen slowly and hold on to high natural acidity, which is exactly what sparkling wine needs. Drumborg, where the fruit for this wine is grown, is the region’s best-known pocket, and it’s a long way from the more famous regions most people associate with Australian wine.

Explore Further

Profile

Lethbridge, Geelong

For almost a decade, Ray Nadeson and Maree Collis juggled the demands of establishing and running a vineyard and caring for a young family, while also maintaining careers as research scientists – both have PhDs, in medicine and chemistry respectively. In 2003, Lethbridge became their permanent home and focus, with a vineyard-first approach driving them to implement biodynamic principles (not certified) and pursue soil health through a proactive evolution of their methods to evolve their practices to suit their site. All the wines are made onsite by Nadeson, with the home vineyard the source of all their Estate, Single Block and Reserve wines.

Deep Dive

Australia’s Best Sparkling Blanc de Blancs

Blanc de blancs – literally ‘white of whites’ – is a style of sparkling wine defined by its conceptual and literal purity. It’s traditionally made from one grape variety only – chardonnay – and it nearly always possesses a racy, linear acidity that makes it ultra-crisp and refreshing. But beyond these basics, there’s an impressive diversity of flavour to be found in the category, with winemakers utilising all manner of fruit sources and techniques to build layers of flavour and intrigue. It’s an exciting category for Australian wine – so exciting, in fact, that we felt a Deep Dive was required.

Wine 101

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.