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Domaine Belargus + Terre à Terre tasting + Ruggabellus

by Annandale Cellars

Domaine Belargus

Loire Valley - France

Domaine Belargus is on track to become one of the top domaines in the Loire Valley and in my opinion one of the finest producers of Chenin Blanc on the planet. Founded by Ivan Massonat, a self confessed wine tragic with a background in private equity, whose purchase of Jo Pithon's estate Pithon Paille formed the backbone of Domaine Belargus. Ivan has continued to purchase parcels across Anjou, Savennière, Quarts-des-Chaume and the Layon Valley and now holds over 24 hectares of vines, many being Grand Cru. All of the sites are farmed organically and with the help of Jo Pithon and Guy Bossard (Domaine de l'Ecu) are now transitioning fully to biodynamics.

The aim here is to make world class white wines that comfortably sit alongside the best of Burgundy, albeit through the lens of Chenin Blanc: a densely-packed and detailed set of dry white wines each year, and in the best vintages, a range of sweet wines from some of the absolute best terroirs in the Loire Valley. The low yielding vines produce the glorious golden nectar that I love so much, coaxing out a level of power and finesse rarely seen from this region. These are wines that are built to age in the best cellars across the globe and accompany the finest of meals. It's a very rare story to have a domaine still in it's infancy already producing wines of this calibre and a true pleasure for us to be able to enjoy them. Our expectations for this domaine were set high from their first release in 2018 and each year the bar is raised higher. - Pete L

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Terre à Terre

Tasting Saturday 19th August

3pm - 6pm

The founders of Terre à Terre share some very strong roots in the wine world: Xavier Bizot whose father was the sixth president of Bollinger in Champagne and Lucy Croser, daughter of Brian Croser, formerly of Petaluma and now Tapanappa fame via their vineyards in Wrattonbully. With Terre à Terre, they combine the best of Australian and French viticulture and winemaking to produces some of Australia's best Sauvignon Blanc as well as a string of reds that look to Bordeaux for inspiration. As they have grown they've picked up vineyards in other regions too, like the Summertown vineyard in Adelaide Hills and are also producing some incredible sparkling wines under their Daosa label.

We will have open a selection of the wines from Terre à Terre including a museum release of their 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon plus some sparkling wine from Daosa to start. - Pete L

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Ruggabellus

Ruggebellus probably needs no introduction to many of you... Abel Gibson's avant garde label that works with incredible vineyards dotted across the Barossa and Eden Valleys has become one of the most exciting wineries to emerge from the region in recent times.

Abel grew up in the Barossa and around wine, with his father working at Penfolds for many years. Following on that path Abel spent time working for some of the region's biggest names like Rockford, Chris Ringland, Penfolds, Spinifex and Charles Melton. Setting out on his own, Abel identified old vineyards across the region that inspired him and began the journey to make the kind of wines he enjoyed, gentler and more graceful styles of wine that highlighted the quality of fruit and they place they came from. His reds focus on the three main red varieties of the region Grenache, Mataro and Shiraz, producing deep and layered wines that lean more towards their structured, savoury old world cousins than the riper, bolder styles the region is typically associated with.

Abel is also one of the pioneers of pushing skin contact wines in Australia to the fore, producing a set of wines that rival the very best European examples of the style, melding Semillon, Riesling and Muscat to create one of my favourite "orange" wines, Sallio. It was one of the first wines I tried when I started working here and has been a benchmark ever since. Not forgetting the Quomodo... the Riesling like no other, oxidative, textural, powerful and built to age. These are the kind of wines we love. - Pete L

 

 

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