Top Italian varietal wines from Pizzini

In a year of tasting something between 6,000 and 8,000 Australian wines, it takes something rather special for a new winery to forge itself a place in my conscience.

Pizzini is a small vineyard and winery in Victoria’s King Valley. The Pizzini family arrived in Australia in 1955, having set out for the other side of the world from their home in Trento Alto Aldige in the Italian Alps. It was a tough life on their arrival in Australia, digging potatoes, entering the local tobacco growing game and sharefarming, despite early difficulties with the English language. Industriously, the family became the largest tobacco producing company in the southern hemisphere and by the late 1960s employed and supported seventeen share farmers as well as the four brother’s families.

Smartly, the family began to diversify, but shunned the option of growing blueberries and planted grapes instead. Brown Brothers of Milawa were continuing their ongoing search for new varieties and sites, and the Pizzinis planted chardonnay plus a typical collection of French red varieties, which they then sold to makers all over Australia. But in the mid 1980s, an inkling of their Italian heritage prompted them to plant nebbiolo and sangiovese. Naturally, given the scarcity of cuttings for these vines, it took time to create a critical mass, so while in 1985 Alfred planted 35 vines, by in 1986 he had enough buds to graft out four acres. By the late 1990s Alfred Pizzini had also begun to experiment with the white Italian varietals of verduzzo, picolit and arneis. Today the Pizzini Arneis, is racy, dry and mineral, with vibrant pear and apple-like flavour.

Alfred Pizzini wants to be the leading producer of Italian varietal wines in Australia. He’s enlisted the travelling Italian winemaker and viticulturist Alberto Antonini, to help refine the Italian varietal wines, guiding Alfred and his son Joel, winemaking graduate from Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. Joel has has already worked at an impressive list of international wineries, and is today making the Pizzini’s best wine yet. As a winemaker, he seeks to marry layers of texture and flavour with elegance and charm.

Most impressive is the Sangiovese, and the 2004 vintage is a wonderful effort that ranks with Castagna’s 2002 La Chiave as one of the best two wines yet from the classic Tuscan variety in Australia. Sangiovese has presented a serious challenge to Australian winemakers. Early efforts with this Tuscan red grape were hampered by poor clonal material, or else in some cases by grapevines that are rumoured not even to be sangiovese at all! It happens with all newly transplanted grape varieties, and it has certainly taken time for makers to adapt their cellar techniques to best accentuate the varietal qualities of sangiovese.

Of the steadily emerging class of genuinely varietal Australian sangiovese, which now includes wines under the Garry Crittenden ‘i’ label, the Coriole, the Domain Day and Castagna’s La Chiave, the 2004 Pizzini is one of the finest. It’s bony and savoury, with a deep, chocolatey aroma of dark plums and cherries that overlies suggestions of spice and sweet vanilla oak. Sumptuous and meaty, it packs a long and astringent palate of dark, sour-edged fruit backed by spicy nuances of cloves and cinnamon. There’s great shape and structure, plus the near certainty that it should develop beautifully in the bottle for the next five to seven years.

Like many others, Joel Pizzini is seduced by what he describes as ‘the intriguing power, complexity and elegant finesse’ of that regal variety from the Piemonte, nebbiolo. The grape responsible for Barolo, it shares some of the apparently contradictory charm of pinot noir. While able to present heady and ethereal aromatic qualities and a colour that is only moderately full at deepest, it reveals remarkable strength and astringency.

Given that the current Pizzini release is the 2000 vintage, it’s a fair best to assume that Joel has refined the wine in better seasons like 2002 and 2004. That said, the 2000 wine is a credible effort indeed: a rustic and varietally correct expression of the grape. Rich and savoury, it’s firm and astringent, marrying lightly herbal, meaty and leathery complexity with a deep core of slightly jammy plum and cherry flavour. There’s some smokiness about the palate, plus a hint of camphor and mature cheddar cheese. It’s long and drying, with some herbal undertones, but is ready to enjoy with an appropriately flavoursome and sumptuous dish.

To conclude, I still can’t help the feeling that too many wines from new varieties to Australia get much of their publicity simply through their point of difference. The Pizzini wines have captured my attention for their quality as much as anything else. Please login to post comment