It’s summer…and about to get HOT here in Victoria.
We’ve had a mild spring, with average rainfall which is great for our vines. They’re healthy and growing well.
2019 has been a big year for us as we welcomed our son Charlie, received critical acclaim from James Halliday, Huon Hooke and Mike Bennie, started exporting to Japan and featured in the latest Wine Australia marketing campaign.
On our website, you’ll find our new release Viognier, Rosé, Nebbiolo, Shiraz and our inaugural Cabernet Sauvignon.
Our 2017 SubRosa Monseigneur Grampians Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty special. You can read all about it and how Adam got his “Monseigneur” nickname in the next issue of Halliday Wine Companion magazine on sale 16 January, 2020.
Want to know all our news? Read our Summer 2019 newsletter here.
Local delivery ONLY. $150 value for $120 with free local delivery by Nancy or Adam in eco-friendly gift box.
Delivery 20 December: Dunkeld, Willaura
Delivery by 23 December: Ararat, Avoca, Ballarat, Halls Gap, Horsham, Moyston, Pomonal, Stawell. If you suburb is not listed, but within an hour of Ararat – contact us.
Available for purchase until Sunday 22 December, 2019. Limited availability.
In April this year (only five weeks after Charlie was born), Wine Australia visited SubRosa in the Grampians wine region to photograph and film for their marketing campaign Australian Wine Made our Way.
The new campaign is capturing Australian’s working in wine and sharing their stories across the globe.
“I love the idea of having a great wine, great food and great company. And everyone enjoying a time where they don’t worry about what they say or what they do but just enjoy the experience. That’s what SubRosa is all about.” – Nancy Panter, SubRosa Wine
Winter in the Grampians. Green grass, cool sunny days and wood fires. Hearty beef stew, lamb shanks and ragu…all with a glass of award-winning SubRosa shiraz.
Sounds relaxing, but there’s no time to hibernate at SubRosa HQ this winter – we’re busy bottling, exporting, hosting tastings, oh, and changing nappies. More about our bundle of joy later…
We’re also celebrating! It’s official, James Halliday loves our wines. We’ve got great big silly grins plastered all over our shiraz stained faces because James Halliday awarded our wines fantastic scores in his 2020 Wine Companion. You can buy all the wines featured in our online store or search for stockists here.
This is a big deal for our small winery, but wait, there’s more: we’re also thrilled to be named in The Real Review’s Top Wineries of Australia 2019 list; and have our humble 2016 SubRosa Nebbiolo declared by one industry expert as his “guilty pleasure wine”.
Winemaker Adam is out and about with tasting events in Sydney and Melbourne but before he heads off, it’s time to throw another log on the fire and pour ourselves a nice glass of shiraz while we have a quiet moment. Join us? Order our 2016 SubRosa Malakoff Estate Shiraz now!
Hand-picked bunches held in the press for 2 hours for phenolic extraction, cool, wild ferment in barrel, 9 months on gross lees with stirring, 80 dozen made. Great label design. A remarkable achievement: full flavour on a medium to full-bodied palate without any oily phenolics. Buy here
A 70/30% regional blend matured for 10 months in French oak, 240 dozen made. The Grampians gives the wine more stiffening – not of tannins or extract, but of fruit flavour, black cherry and blackberry acting in concert. The label design and printing is worth extra points, as is the splash of viognier. Terrific value. Buy here
Hand-picked, matured for 16 months in French oak, only 80 dozen made. The colour is much lighter than expected, and it’s on the lighter side of medium-bodied – but it’s well balanced, expressing its variety and region, its fruit spicy and juicy. And yes, it’s a great drink. Buy here
These excellent scores mean we retain our five star rating.
It’s not easy making amazing wine in small batches. Well done Adam.
The team at Young Gun of Wine recently brought together a panel of experts for a blind Australian Nebbiolo tasting and every panelist rated our 2016 SubRosa Nebbiolo in their top six wines!
Nebbiolo. It’s one of those revered words. The lights dim. Eyes widen. The chatter quietens to a murmur. Well, metaphorically at least. For those held in its thrall, nebbiolo holds a grip like no other grape.
Nebbiolo is a paradox, a combination of elements that shouldn’t make sense. But they do. It tends to higher alcohol, but rarely becomes rich and sweet fruited in doing so. Even at high ripeness, it maintains nervy acidity, set against profound tannins. It can be fragrantly pretty and floral, as well as ruggedly mineral and dry toned – and often simultaneously so. It conveys nuance of site like few varieties, and it can produce staggeringly long-lived wines. It is like no other grape…
Our panel was made up of: Jane Lopes, Beverage Director at Attica; Leanne Altmann, Beverage Director for Andrew McConnell’s restaurants; winemaker Ben Haines of Ben Haines Wine; Kayleen Reynolds, manager of the City Wine Shop; Gavin Cremming, Group Sommelier for the Van Haandel Group; and Christian Canala, director of Vinify wine Co. All wines were tasted blind…
Canala called this his “guilty pleasure wine,” remarking on the “sweetly fruited core, and a tight packaging of the tannin, just a pleasure.” Cremming enjoyed the depth and commented on the “Well-layered red cherry and wild red fruit, classic dried herb,” while Canala saw “wizz fizz, cherry ripe and some baking spice.” “Tannins are present as expected, but a vibrant acidity gives freshness to the wine,” concluded Cremming.
We’re really excited that SubRosa wines are now available in Japan thanks to our partner Down Under Inc in Osaka.
Eight members of the Down Under Inc and G’day Wine restaurant team visited us in the Grampians in January for a tasting. Six months later…we now export wine to Japan – just in time for the 2019 Rugby World Cup Japan and the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020!
With four wines reviewed, we feature at position #194 and were awarded a Certificate of Excellence.
According to The Real Review, who review 10,000 wines each year, The Real Review Certificate of Excellence is awarded to a select group of wineries that consistently produce excellent wine. The Top Wineries list is a national benchmark.
Mike Bennie’s one of a kind. Wine writer, critic, host, presenter, judge and entrepreneur, he’s an encyclopedia of wine knowledge. If you get the chance, go to an event hosted by Mike, you’re guaranteed to have a fabulous time and walk away a little more knowledgeable about wine and many other things!
We love showing our wines to Mike. He’s a straight shooter and Adam responds candidly to his direct questions. Mike has a way to capture and share Adam’s winemaking thoughts, ambitions and processes in his reviews.
Adam showed Mike our wines on a recent trip to Sydney, here are a few review highlights.
“…Style-wise it reminds me a bit of Olek Bondonio’s wines of Barbaresco.
It’s a vibrant, pure-feeling expression, loaded with perfume, lashed with savoury, iron-filing and graphite-tannins, bright in fruit flavour, dusted with attractive spice. There’s also a distinct vibrancy here, a cheery, cherry-kissed feel that’s easy for earlier access, despite there being cool, amaro-like acidity and a sheath of building tannin. It drives assertively then lingers with sappy fruit and minerally feel. It’s such a pleasure. It’s great.”
“Beefy kind of wine but still holds a dedicated freshness and vitality, despite the rich, darker fruits, sense of earthiness, strong lick of dark choc-liquorice. The glossy texture is lovely, a light burr of tannins adds more grunt. It’s not a huge wine, per se, but it is memorable in the way bolder flavour can stain the palate and mind. It’s done well.”
“… if you haven’t cottoned onto SubRosa, you should. You’ll be thanking yourself down the trail when these start commanding higher prices and generally being difficult to find. No doubt.
Svelte, seamless, succulent wine. Dark cherry, sarsaparilla, lavish spice scents, with all this doubling back into the palate. It slips softly over the palate leaving a slick of that spice and blackcurrant fruit character, with tannins just gently holding shape. If you like ‘syrah’, let’s say, with some concentration, this is excellent.”
