A SPARKLING MORNING
Feel like being treated like a rock star? This Tassie festival of sparkling wines may be just your thing
Champagne is a great breakfast drink,” says winemaker Steve Lubiana with a grin. “It’s fresh and lively, not too heavy, and you can drink it with many different foods, which is not the case for most wines.”
It’s even better when you are sipping it at a beautiful winery to which you’ve arrived by Porsche.
It’s this sort of luxury handling guests can expect as part of an exclusive new experience at the fifth annual Effervescence sparkling wine festival, which will be held in November.
The festival has grown from a one-day affair based in the North to a suite of events held over more than a week. It will launch in the South on November 11 with the all-day Pure Indulgence experience.
Guests will begin their day bright and early at the Stefano Lubiana Winery at Granton, travelling half an hour upriver from Hobart in a chauffeur-driven Porsche or Mercedes-Benz.
There they will be uncorked into the world of sparkling for brunch and a tasting session with the exuberant Steve at the family-owned vineyard he runs with his wife Monique.
The day continues with a behind-thescenes tour at Mona’s Moorilla Winery, finishing up with bubbles and fine fare at the The Lounge by Frogmore Creek, a plush bar and restaurant right on the Hobart waterfront in the MAC01 complex.
TasWeekend popped in to the Lubiana winery last week for a sneak preview with Steve and left an hour later with a much better understanding of how sparkling wine is made. This, in turn, does wonders for appreciation.
Steve is a fifth-generation winemaker with an Italian family background. He made his first sparkling in 1985 in the South Australian Riverland district where he grew up, moving to Tasmania in 1990 and making his first vintage on the current site in 1993.
He chose cool-climate Tasmania and this location with sparkling specifically in mind. Situated high above the Derwent, it is close enough to the water to benefit from its moderating influence and far enough away to replicate some of the continental characteristics of the Champagne region in France.
From a small cellar door and winery in the early days, it now has a large winery, cellar door and rustic restaurant known as the Osteria, a big kitchen garden that supplies most of its produce and a sensational lawn overlooking the river.
Best of all, the growing conditions have turned out to be perfect for the chardonnay and pinot grapes with which Steve makes his classic, fine styles of sparkling.
“To get elegance and finesse into the fruit is almost impossible if [the climate is] too warm,” says Steve, who struggled to achieve the desired elegance with Riverland grapes, which tended to have too much phenolic character and flavour. “You don’t want too much flavour in a sparkling wine.”
The Lubiana vineyard was certified biodynamic earlier this decade and has won best biodynamic wine in the world for the past three years at the International Wine Challenge. “I swear by biodynamic. It’s fantastic,” Steve says of the alternative agricultural methods — common in Europe but less so here — he uses to replenish the soil. These include burying manure in cow horns and cosmic calendar plantings.
Effervescence Tasmania is the state’s premium festival for fine Tasmanian sparkling wines. There’s never been a better time to celebrate it, with our international reputation soaring to position us in the top tier.
Like most Tasmanian winemakers, Steve uses only traditional winemaking methods. Now that I ‘ve seen more of the labour of love that goes into making sparkling wine, I will savour every drop – even more than before.
The author’s visit to Stefano Lubiana Winery was hosted by southern events organiser Performance Automobiles