2016 Sud de Frank Rosé

Sud de Frank Rosé is a partnership between Jared Dixon of Jillywineco in Clunes, the Byron Bay hinterland which actually has a wine zone, the Northern Rivers, and Dan Graham of Sigurd Wines in the Barossa. Dixon and Graham met in winemaking at university. Sud de Frank is the latest avatar of both Dixon and Graham whose other sobriquets are Jilly, White Wolf of Cumbria, FIFO, Lone Ranger, Big Cats, and Sigurd. It’s hard to keep up. So this is a joking-title (?) of a wine, seemingly French, with the label and cap cutely representing the French flag colours. (I love it, too, because my father was Frank and frank.) It is a gorgeous traditional Rosé, of bronze/salmon in colour, rich strawberries and cream in perfume, and gobsmackingly dry on the palate. To drink, to drink, to drink. What I don’t like is the absence of year, grape variety and regions on the label. And this could do with the winemakers’ names too.

 

Long Point Vineyard Lake Cathie Midnight Rosé

Long Point Vineyard Lake Cathie Midnight Rosé, from winemaker Graeme Davies, is red-ruby velvet in colour, with a perfume of toasted waffles, maple syrup and some rose. The palate is honey-ant. While light at the end, it has good middle depth and texture. The label is v-shaped to establish symbolically that long point, with a logo of L and P cleverly coupled. 

2016 Jilly The White Wolf of Cumbria New England Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurztraminer Rosé

The 2016 Jillywineco The White Wolf of Cumbria New England Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurztraminer Rosé (although not named as such on the label) is sharp on the palate, with citrus, grass and straw. It’s a bright but watery blood colour, with aromas of honey, vanilla and marmalade.

Konpira Maru Wine Company Vermentino

Konpira Maru Wine Company make a Vermentino, but the company is new to me. The website says 'Wines made in Melbourne, true to variety and the ground in which they're grown'. But the website does not tell you where 'Konpira Maru' comes from. The young men featured on the site, Sam Cook and Alastair Reid, are the winemakers, helped by our local Jared Dixon. Like most of Dixon's not-interfered-with white wines, the Konpira Maru V for Vermentino is a cloudy gold in colour, being unfiltered and unfined. Nuts, citrus and butter feature in the aroma, and the well-judged, mid-length palate is creamy with green apple. If I wanted to say what Vermentino is, this is it … as well as the Yalumba Vermentio. There's no year on the bottle, but the label is black, with grape in white and company in red. The detail of winemaking includes 'batonage', an old wine-making technique: stirring the wine-in-barrels with a baton.

2016 Jilly Field Blend

As I write, I have just opened Jared Dixon's green-waxed and corked bottle of 2016 Jilly Field Blend the label of which features a greyscale, alert hare, the type you see, like wallabies for example, sitting up, ears vertical, scanning and ready to bound off in the opposite direction from what they are perceiving. The list of grape varieties in this Field Blend is like the chants of the Catholic liturgy for Easter: the reds being Nebbiolo, Shiraz, Tempranillo, Tannat, Pinotage, Tinta Cao, Touriga, Barbera, and the whites being Gewurtzraminer, Chardonnay, Viognier and Petit Manseng. Dixon took the grapes of the first rows of Mark Kirkby's Topper's Mountain 'fruit-salad' vine plantings, which are usually under attack from birds in the nearby bush. Dixon's hand-made wines are made from what it to hand. He whole-bunch pressed and fermented with the abundant wild yeast of New England and the Northern Rivers. The Field Blend's subtle, mixed perfume is of calamine lotion, vanilla and orange peel. In colour, it's really a deepish ruby-crimson, and that's because, despite those whites, many of the reds are big red-wine grapes. Its palate is, not unexpectedly, surprising: at the very end is the citrus of the whites; before that is, briefly, Turkish delight; in the middle, some musk sticks; toward the end, some orange peel again; and at the beginning is citrus, where the whites are very strong. So it is wine that glides across borders.

2016 Jilly Dick Dixon New England Shiraz Nebbiolo

Appropriately, given the chaos-based nature of living/life, Jared Dixon, the NSW Northern Rivers young, local, emerging wine-maker, has subtitled his 2016 Jilly Dick Dixon New England Shiraz Nebbiolo ‘addicted to the unknown’. It’s a deep, deep ruby red with an aroma of chocolate, tobacco and wood smoke. On the palate it is mostly savoury with a rough edge. It would be a beautiful wine with food, likely to enhance roast chicken or meatballs. A dedication to a Dick Dixon is emblematic of the intra-family association, not uncommon in wine-making.

2015 Jilly Roman Giallo

Jared Dixon's 2015 Jilly Roman Giallo (or yellow) is really extraordinary. A New England Petit Manseng, again it is a gold in colouring with a pink edge, orange too and ale-ish similarly. If I knew what gold bullion smelt like, I expect it would smell like this — along with being honeyed. And on the palate, it tastes of what I imagine, somewhat fantastically, gold dust would taste like. It's sherbet too. It is made with minimal interference, and Dixon said the wine fought through to its fine end, like the Romans, hence the name. The gold wax over the cork drips luxuriously down the bottle. And the Roman Giallo is on a leather-like shield or a piece of leather-like armour.

2015 Jilly New England Big Cats

Jared Dixon named a 2015 New England red Big Cats, the label featuring a lion's head, because Dixon thought it was a big wine. Made from Touriga and Tempranillo grapes, it is a deep, ruby-red velvet in colour with the illusion of purple. There's tart hot plum in the perfume, conveying the expectation of tannin, but it's smooth on the palate, yet with depth and length. Probably Dixon's best red to date, it represents a mature level of winemaking. Very drinkable, yet suited to experienced drinkers and fine dining. Very impressive.