A taste of Italy
We hear from some of the local champions behind prosecco.
PHIL LEHMANN and his brother Dave grew up with South Australian wine country as their personal playground. His earliest memory of wine is from age three at Barossa Valley’s Saltram winery, where his father was the winemaker for 20 years. “Being brought up in a family where your dad’s well known in the industry – you know, Peter Lehmann – you end up having some pretty amazing experiences,” Phil says. “I remember walking around in the middle of the night through the vineyards as these big Riverland trucks would come to deliver grapes. When I was five or six years old, we’d have these family lunches and, in our water glasses, my brother and I would have just a tiny dot of shiraz to accompany our roast lamb – it’s a very French thing to do.
“When I was young, the industry was in a bit of a downturn. Part of it was just keeping their own business going, but Mum and Dad were really active in keeping all the growers on the land. Everything they seemed to do was to help the grape growers of the Barossa,” Phil says.
“There was so much good sentiment out there, everyone knew who the old man was. But with that came a huge amount of pressure. I guess it doesn’t matter what your family does, I’m sure all kids who go into the family business have the same kind of trouble with expectation and people assuming you have it easy because of who your parents are.”
After high school, Phil pursued a different career altogether, one with no familial ties or shoes to fill – engineering. But his love of wine soon pulled him back to the vineyard. “I travelled for about two years after studying, working in Europe, South Africa and California doing vintages, selling booze in bottle shops in London, that kind of thing. [Engineering] seemed like a good job… but after training in wineries all over the world, I just thought, ‘I already know so much about this stuff – it’s in the fabric of my upbringing.’ Even in different countries, where they were speaking different languages, the rhythm of everything was the same. The grapes get ripe and then you pick them. You rush to prevent spoilage. You do all you can to make the wine as good as it can be.
“While I was doing a vintage in Burgundy towards the end of my travels, it all just clicked into place. The people there have been doing that job for so long – more than a thousand years – they are smart businessmen, they knew how to make money from their little blocks of land, but they also really enjoy themselves. They’d set aside half their production just to drink at lunchtime with their staff and, to me, that seemed like a really nice rhythm of life.”
Phil returned home at 24 to study winemaking and oenology at the University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy campus. After graduating, he took a job with Yalumba in Barossa. “I started off making cask wine and… you really learn a hell of a lot trying to make something decent out of boring batches or off-cuts – you learn how to knock them into shape,” he says. “I also specialised in chardonnay while I was there. I was sent by the company to learn about different winemaking techniques in regions like Geelong and Martinborough in New Zealand. Yalumba was great like that, making sure its winemakers all have their own little research projects. It was almost
like a university in that sense, you couldn’t just relax and have long lunches all the time, though there were a few of those.”
After five years at Yalumba, a winemaking role became available at Peter Lehmann Wines and Phil took it. “At Lehmann’s, the old family values were talked about so much, but it was largely foreign owned. I didn’t sit there very comfortably – I felt like I was a show exhibit, rather than someone who just wanted to make some cracking booze. I was there for about two years until I pulled the pin. I went to do some more study. Uni is a great spot to hide when things don’t turn out the way you’d hoped.”
While studying for his MBA, Kym Teusner of Teusner Wines approached Phil to work with him as winemaker. There, Phil felt reinvigorated by the same back-to-basics philosophy that inspired him so much in France. “Kym did things really traditionally, making red wines in open fermentation. I hadn’t really been exposed to those more small-scale production techniques. I’d only worked in large companies with a more modern, industrial way of making wine,” Phil says. “It put me back on track.”
In his downtime from work and study, Phil had also been tending to an Eden Valley property that would go on to produce the first vintage for Max & Me nearly a decade later. “I’ve always kind of grown and sold grapes, even while I was working at other wineries,” Phil says. “When you’ve got the fruit and it’s what you do, you inevitably play around with making a few things. But I hadn’t thought seriously about doing something on my own yet.” Though the Max & Me brand didn’t launch until 2016, the inspiration for its name came in 2003 when Phil met his wife Sarah.
“Mum and Dad always loved to be involved in the arts and had been big supporters of the Barossa Music Festival. This particular year they happened to be overseas, but were hosting some of the artists from the festival at their property. I was there with my rescue dog Max, who comes with me everywhere, and he immediately sought out a guest, Sarah – a ballerina who was performing at Peter Lehmann Wines. Max was the real go-between for us. She’s a total dog nut just like me. She pretty much married me to get to him.” They made their first vintage in 2011. “We tucked it away in barrels, bottling it unlabelled until 2016,” Phil says. “Sarah came up with the label design for our winery because Max was always with one of us. She’d bring him with her to cellar door sales, or he’d come with me to work. Plus, I really didn’t want to try to trade off my last name.” This year, Max & Me was named in the Top 10 Best New Wineries in the Halliday Wine Companion 2021. With a five-star rating, the future looks bright for this small-scale Eden Valley winery.
But small is how it will stay, Phil says. “It feels almost like an extravagance just getting to do our own label. For me, it’s about following the journey all the way from grapes to glass – it’s a great pleasure to see the wine reach its full potential. I try to grow the fruit for all our wines myself and run the winery organically. We don’t try to grow too much.
“Many things can be copied. If you see someone’s got a good idea, you can analyse what they’re doing and try to replicate it. But the piece of ground is the only thing that can’t be imitated. We try to make [the wines] taste of the region by not going overboard with the decisions made in the winery. We just try to reflect what the country produces and what the variety does, and if you can make a living out of it, great. If you get to do what you love as a job, it’s pretty nice.”
As for their wines, Phil says their flagship is shiraz. “It’s a really special drop. It tastes like the variety, but it also has that unique flavour of the Barossa high country that differs from the Barossa Valley floor,” he says. “We’re on fairly minerally, lean soils, which give the fruit aromas real ‘cut’. You get defined flavours without that juicy, chocolaty mid-palate – it’s much more svelte. And riesling from Eden Valley is such a good drink. On a hot summer’s day, a fresh, cold glass of riesling is a pretty beautiful thing.”
LIKE MOST Italian immigrant farmers in Victoria’s King Valley,
Otto Dal Zotto transitioned to growing grapes in the 1980s after a long stint farming tobacco. He grew Italian varieties and hoped to recreate prosecco – the sparkling wine of his birthplace, Valdobbiadene. Bolstered by his sons Christian and Michael,
Otto finally sourced prosecco cuttings and, in 2004, introduced Australia’s first prosecco. A micro-production of 375 cases, that wine flew off the shelves – so popular that the Dal Zottos had to restrict sales to three bottles per customer. As the region developed, Dal Zotto’s production grew to 70,000 cases, and their success spurred a domestic prosecco industry worth $60m.
Australian prosecco pays homage to its Italian roots. The grape, called glera in Italy, has grown in the valleys of Valdobbiadene and Conegliano in northern Italy since the days of Pliny the Elder, who referred to prosecco’s healing properties back in AD23. The fresh, light wine sparkles with soft bubbles created through the CharmatMartinotti method, which calls for pressurised tanks for the second fermentation instead of the labour-intensive and expensive bottle-fermented processes of Champagne. Prosecco is winning the international sparkling wine game with its creamy bubbles, walletfriendly prices and appealing lower alcohol.
Back home, prosecco is the fastest-growing white grape and the King Valley offers perfect growing conditions. “The climate is ideal, with just the right amount of warmth throughout the day and cool nights to promote flavoursome, but fresh and vibrant prosecco wine styles,” says Brown Brothers chief winemaker Joel Tilbrook. About three hours northeast of Melbourne, the Valley sits at the foothill of the snowfields. Cool winds descend the Victorian Alps at night and drop the temperature by 10 to 20 degrees. “This diurnal shift suits the dainty semi-aromatic grape,” Joel says.
“In warmer climates, it quickly loses the delicate aromatics that are critical to a good prosecco,” Michael Dal Zotto says. He adds that the region also offers a rich texture of fertile soils.
“The beautiful thing about here is the diversity. The different valleys
Chrismont vineyards in Victoria’s beautiful
King Valley. with differing micro-climates help build complexity and structure within the wines.”
Most producers in the region boast Italian heritage and some even share the same family tree. In the early days, grapes were mostly grown on contract for Brown Brothers – the largest and oldest winery here. The Italian sense of adventure soon took over, and new wineries formed with a focus on Italian grapes. As you taste your way along what’s known as Prosecco Road in the region, you find a slather of Italian varietals, but there is always prosecco, with each producer adding their own variation on the classic wine.
The Dal Zottos champion the varietal with six different styles, including a vintage expression sourced from their best plot, a traditional method style, and an experimental pink version. Their top cuvees are the bottle-fermented Col Fondo. Michael was introduced to this artisan style by his Italian cousins and recalls how they tipped the cloudy wine into a jug and drank it when clear. “With hard cheese and salumi, it was magnificent.” It made a strong impression, and he felt compelled to recreate it at home.
Col Fondo translates to “from the bottom” and references the lees sediment that collects at the bottom of the bottle. “It’s not a pet-nat,” Michael explains. “We restart the secondary ferment in the bottle and then we don’t disgorge it. The wine sits on lees until someone drinks it.” Typically, the wine is released 18 months after the vintage. The Col Fondo Pucino is bone-dry – they eschew the dosage – and highly textural. In dramatic contrast to the fruity and floral notes often associated with prosecco, the palate is savoury with green olive and lemon zest, with a nutty finish. Their awardwinning Col Fondo Tabelo digs deeper into tradition and uses the concentrated juice of rack-dried grapes in its liqueur de tirage. Only 600 bottles of Tabelo are made, and sell mostly at cellar door or in venues. “This is for someone who wants to see prosecco in a different light,” Michael says.
At the southern end of the Valley, Chrismont set out to make a non-vintage style under the direction of chief winemaker
Warren Proft, who was inspired by the use of reserve wines in Champagne. “The reserve wine is essentially a collection of older wines that we draw on for blending, and refresh afterwards with new-vintage wine,” he says. “It adds a little point of complexity, consistency, and adds a style signature.” Chrismont adds up to 15 per cent reserve wine to the final blend of La Zona Prosecco, adding more complexity and body.
While most Australian proseccos are spumante style, sitting at four to five bars of pressure, a new style is emerging in smaller formats at Pizzini Wines and Brown Brothers, which have both released their non-vintages in 250ml cans. The carbonation pressure is reduced by half, similar to the frizzante style. Joel Pizzini says the eco-friendly cans attract a different demographic to the brand than those who seek out traditional bottles.
Producers outside the region are also adding the popular fizz to their ranges, including Andrew Vesey from Risky Business, who is based in Perth, but sourcing fruit from the King Valley. “No matter what style of wine you’re trying to produce, if you can retain fruit flavour and expression in your process, and capture that in the bottle, I think that will always stand well. It is continually tricky with prosecco because it does have the ability and tendency to be quite neutral.” Andrew regularly visits his site, which is under Chrismont’s management. The vineyard sees minimal intervention and Andrew chooses vegan-friendly pea protein as the fining agent for his low-dosage rendition.
Not tempted by the lures of King Valley fruit, Brian Freeman, former viticulture professor at Charles Sturt University, crafts beautiful prosecco in the cool NSW region of Hilltops. He grows his own fruit on his 175-hectare property, which sits atop a large bed of granite rock. Brian’s prosecco is also set apart in a few other ways. Firstly, he uses barrels for fermentation. “I was keen to develop a more complex prosecco style with lower residual sugar and a creamy textural palate. We derive this by fermenting a portion in old oak barrels before blending and the secondary Martinotti fermentation.” He then uses a cork closure to contain the five to six bars of pressure, when most others use the practical crown closure. “It is a celebratory drink. The pop of the cork just makes it a bit more of an experience,” Brian says. It’s a sentiment shared by others
The Brown Brothers Banksdale vineyard. such as Brown Brothers, which also cork-seals its proseccos.
Bars and restaurants are increasingly showcasing quality Australian proseccos alongside their Italian counterparts. Wine consultant and sommelier Samantha Payne finds the import tariffs on the Italian wines add a price difference of up to $6 to the per-glass price, compared to quality Australian examples, which sell from
$10 a glass.
“The beauty of Australian prosecco is the history and craftsmanship that comes with an extremely affordable price tag,” Samantha says. “When we tell stories about Dal Zotto first planting these vines in the late ’90s and pioneering prosecco in this country, and then people try that first sip of an incredibly balanced and flavoursome wine, it’s hard not to be impressed.”