Lovers of Chardonnay and Pinot—well, let’s face it, those who believe in the transcendent beauty of wine—are seduced by detail. The conversation (or, at least, the interesting ones) at the pointy end of wine has shifted so far from style and status and landed in a sphere where origin and otherness are everything.
That is precisely what this release is all about. For 35 years now, Steve and Monique have been tirelessly tramping around this extraordinary patch overlooking the Derwent River in Granton. The site’s micro-terroirs have always been treated as such: soil pits dug years ago across the more obvious above-ground undulations and exposure; clonal behaviour monitored; and the vines shaking off any kind of handholding long ago, with the vineyard biodynamically farmed since 2010.
Nonetheless, Steve and Monique Lubiana have been far more realistic regarding the timeframe it takes to really know your land. 2017 was the first time they released all three of their single-block Pinot Noir wines, and Steve wears it as a badge of honour that he’s still learning how to do the best by his vines.
He and son Marco go out into the vines constantly—practically daily during the growing season, asking themselves what kind of wine the vines want to make, and what these vignerons have to do to get them there. “It’s farming 101, but sometimes people just don’t do it, or they’re not taking it down to the block-by-block and to the vine,” Steve told the Vininspo! podcast recently. And once the fruit is harvested, it remains under a microscope as it’s gently gravity-fed through the state-of-the-art, four-level winery. “Monique and I are hands-on every day during harvest on the vibrating table,” says Steve, “All our fruit, every single bunch that comes in the winery, is hand-sorted and checked. So, we can see the colour of the fruit coming in, how it bounces along the table. Is it resilient? Is it vibrant? Has it got tension?”
This is the dedication that leaves style and status considerations far behind. It is why tasting Ruscello, Il Giardino and La Roccia is a transporting experience full of nuance and surprise, no matter who you are.
The site, which enjoys a unique confluence of maritime climatic influences flowing up the Derwent River and continental conditions descending from the Central Highlands, is treated as a macro-terroir, too. After all, this is home to Steve and Monique, and the whole vineyard has a story to tell about how the fluctuations of nature from season to season bear upon the various plots. This gives the picture of the year, and that picture is reproduced in the finest possible detail in the Collina Chardonnay and Sasso Pinot Noir—and even then, only if a wine worthy of those names is possible.
What we have here, then, is five expressions of a year on a unique, 35-year-old vineyard, farmed by one of Australia’s most-admired exponents of biodynamic viticulture, whose instinct and discipline in the cellar are the definition of faithfully hands-off.
These five beautiful distillations of a time and place tell a precise story, but one that says a lot about how Australia’s fine wine-growing horizon looks right now.
The Vineyards
Ruscello
- 35-50m asl
- Soils: grey silty gravel over porous gravelly clay
- 30-year-old vines, oldest of the three Single Blocks
- Clones: MV6, 2051 and Moorilla
Il Giardino
- 60-80m asl
- Soils: cracking black clay base over patches of chalky limestone
- 15-year-old vines
- Clones: Abel, 8048, Pommard, D4V2 and MV6
La Roccia
- 70-100m asl
- Soils: crumbly red top-soil and deep red clay over marl clay with limestone bedrock
- 15-year-old vines
- Clones: 115 and 667
Ruscello: White & red Il Giardino: Pink La Roccia: Purple
Vintage 2023
The 2023 growing season was cool, following a drier-than-average winter and spring. Early summer was marred by ferocious winds, resulting in poor flowering. The following months remained cool, and the vintage was delayed until late March 2023. Although yields were down, our diligent and tireless work in the vineyard resulted in grapes of excellent quality, with high flavour concentration and intensity.
SINGLE-BLOCK PINOT NOIR
2023 Collina & Sasso
