The challenge here was to deliver a pretty, elegant version of Sagrantino while still highlighting the incredibly expressive, seductive tannins that can be seen in Sagrantino.
Hamish Young, Owner/winemaker
About The Wine
There's a great sense of exploration about Hamish Young's Mada Wines project. In his sui generis (meaning 'unique') program, Hamish makes a single stand alone wine, never to be repeated.
This year, it's a delicious example of a seldom-seen Italian variety, Sagrantino.
The fruit comes from a dry-grown vineyard on the Eastern side of Young, NSW. It was fermented as whole berries (ala the traditional technique for making Gamay in Beaujolais) inside a huge ceramic egg.
This is an incredibly vibrant rendition of this often times stern variety. Only 70 dozen made.
About Mada Wines
Mada wines sees ex-Eden Road operational winemaker Hamish Young venture out on his own for the first time.
Sourcing fruit from some great sites across the Canberra and Hilltops regions, his first releases were a smash hit and his star continues to rise.
His wines show a fresher and more modern side of NSW wine, all about vibrant fruit and ease of drinking. He looks for texture in his aromatic whites, freshness in his delightful red wines, each release sees him refine his own 'house style' a little more.
This is a Canberra producer to watch for the future - one of the new crop shaking up the regional scene.
As Mike Bennie once said, "Mada Wines should be put on your list of wines to watch, or indeed to buy a bit of....then probably a lot of."

Canberra District, NSW