Spinifex

Peter Schell and Magali Gely are a husband-and-wife team from NZ who came to Australia in the early 1990s to study oenology and marketing at Roseworthy College. They have spent 4 vintages making wine in France, mainly in the south where Magali’s family were vignerons for generations near Montpellier. The focus at Spinifex is the red varieties that dominate in the south of France: mataro (more correctly mourvèdre), grenache, shiraz and cinsault. The wines are made in open fermenters, basket pressed, with partial wild (indigenous) fermentation and relatively long post-ferment maceration. This is a very old approach, but nowadays à la mode. Exports to the UK, Canada, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and NZ. -JAMES HALLIDAY