Chalmers Greco 2021 Review
Greek name, Italian grape, Victorian address.
When Nick Ryan put this wine in his Weekend Australian Top 100 for 2024, with 92 points, he took care to remind readers Greco is not Greek. It is Southern Italian, from Campania, which does not stop the name doing what it does on a wine list. Always at the vanguard of change, the Chalmers family brought the first Greco vines into Australia in 2002 and made a first wine from them in 2005, so they have had plenty of time to practise the correction.
The Mildura connection matters this week. The Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show is held there every year on the weekend after Melbourne Cup Day, and it grew out of the Sangiovese Awards begun in 1999 by Stefano de Pieri, Dr Rod Bonfiglioli and Bruce Chalmers. Chalmers still sponsors the Best Wine of Show trophy. The family's winery and nursery sit at Merbein, just north of town, with around fifty alternative varieties in the ground. The Greco itself comes from their second vineyard at Heathcote, on red Cambrian soil.
Under the watchful eye and deft hand of Chalmers winemaking supremo, Bart van Olphen, this Greco is hand picked, whole bunch pressed, wild fermented in stainless steel and matured for ten months in aged puncheons. Greco keeps its natural acidity through a warm Heathcote summer, which lets the fruit ripen without going soft. The winemaking is plain and the result is not. It is such an interesting wine because it is like nothing else.
In the glass it is a textural white rather than a zippy one. Ripe apple and poached quince lead, then quandong and a toasted wattleseed nuttiness, a mild waxiness which is not a bad thing, and the palate is pithy and mouthwatering with the acidity doing the steering. Full without being heavy, and tight enough at the finish to send you back for another sip, or five.
Drink it with roast chicken, grilled pork or a salty cheese, and pour it for anyone still sceptical about alternative varieties. It needs food, its a bit alcoholic at 14% but hey, why not.
RRP $32
AUS | 2022 | Heathcote | 14.3%
The Wine Scoffer drinks on principle. No samples were solicited. Opinions are entirely our own.
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