After a few vintages of working with the Camelback Vineyard in Heathcote, the fruit production became limited, so I decided to get a tonne of the infamous Malakoff Nebbiolo. The fruit was more masculine than the Nebbiolo I was used to, the Heathcote vineyard read more like Valtellina and the Malakoff more like Serralunga. But with finesse, gentle extraction and time, the fruit was sculpted into the sister-form of the wine it always was. Sometimes I think my cellar knows my intention when producing this wine. It’s like Chiara Boschis once said, as she peered at me through a cluster of Nebbiolo in Barolo, “You are a lion who is a lion, not a butterfly pretending to be a lion.” And maybe that truth witnessed on that day will echo in every sip.
Artwork by Jacques Darcy
Edited by Claire Quirk