Yarra Valley’s Levantine Hill takes on Penfolds Grange and Henschke’s Hill of Grace with a super premium $800 bottle of wine called Optume

The cool climate Yarra Valley will have its own champion to take on Penfolds Grange with the release of Optume by Levantine Hill.

Paul Bridgeman with 2017 Levantine Hill Optume Cabernet Sauvignon.

Levantine Hill, the Yarra Valley winery known for its luxury wine portfolio, is stepping into the ring to challenge Penfolds Grange in the super premium weight class of wine by releasing a new limited edition wine called Optume that will sell for $800 a bottle.

Optume is considered to be the most expensive wine produced in Victoria but still will be slightly cheaper than the latest Grange which sells for around $950 a bottle, and is being positioned to rival the mighty South Australian Penfolds in terms of packaging, taste profile and luxury status for those wealthy drinkers who think nothing of spending so much on a single bottle.

The owner and chief winemaker of Levantine Hill are framing their new Optume brand as the Yarra Valley’s answer to one of the nation’s most expensive and sought after wines, the Grange as well as its fellow South Australian luxury wine Henschke’s Hill of Grace, as competition in the super premium wine market heats up.

Released Thursday for sale, the 2017 Levantine Hill Optume Shiraz and 2017 Levantine Hill Optume Cabernet Sauvignon, will come with all the baubles and ornaments expected of a wine that costs that much.

Elias Jreissati and Paul Bridgeman. Levantine Hill has launched a new $800 bottle of wine called Optume.

The packaging is ultra premium with the wine contained in Gran Cru Class A glass especially imported from France – it is the only Australian wine to use its specialist top end bottle – and kept safe in a wooden presentation box that has its own lock and numbered brass key.

Scarcity will also help support the $800 price tag – there will only be 65 dozen bottles of the Optume Shiraz and an even more limited 58 dozen bottles of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Levantine Hill owner, founder and Melbourne property developer Elias Jreissati said he and his chief winemaker Paul Bridgeman began planning Optume as far back as 2015 as they were both enamoured of what the Yarra Valley could produce and its spot on the world stage of wine.

“In life you want to keep things interesting and we wanted to just throw some curveballs at ourselves and see what we can do so we decided to expand our thinking a bit beyond our own vineyards,” Mr Jreissati said.

“Pursuing perfection has no endpoint. If you‘ve achieved things, where do you go after that? You have got to keep pushing, and that’s our way of pushing.”

Mr Jreissati said while the $800 price tag is expected to make Optume Victoria’s most expensive bottle of new release wine, Levantine Hill had proven that there is a strong market both locally and overseas for the luxury wine and craftsmanship of these wines.

Mr Jreissati and Mr Bridgeman aim to produce a vintage of the Optume reds each year but are willing to hold back and skip years or releases if the fruit and resulting wine doesn’t live up to the luxury standards they have set for the new label.

The duo realise there will be instant comparisons with Penfolds Grange, but it’s a challenge Mr Bridgeman eagerly takes up as the winemaker and believes the Yarra Valley wine will speak for itself and the flavours and taste profiles of the region.

Levantine Hill in the Yarra Valley, Victoria.

Mr Bridgeman said Optume offers a cooler climate alternative to the current crop of luxury reds. It is more finessed and complex rather than an ‘in your face’ big red.

“The acknowledged world famous leaders of the pack when it comes to this price point level wine wines are sourced from South Australia, a comparatively warmer region than the Yarra Valley, so you are going to likely get a bolder expression, certainly bolder, and fuller bodied wines, in your face fruit characters expression, that sort of thing,” Mr Bridgeman said.

“I think the Yarra Valley climatically does not lend itself to replicating those famous styles.

“And therefore working to the strengths of the Yarra Valley region through our production of wine at Levantine Hill we look at the European model, so you can have descriptor words like ‘restraint’ and ‘elegance’, ‘structure’ and ‘finesse’, which may not be immediately front of mind when talking about those quintessentially Australian big red wines.”

“Grange is one of the greatest wines in Australia and certainly one of the greatest wines in the world,” added Mr Jreissati, “but It‘s not my cup of tea, Grange is a very Australian wine and so is Hill of Grace … but you know, we are about making a cool climate, sophisticated, silky wine.

“It’s definitely for the consumer that enjoys French wines, it is absolutely and unashamedly designed to compete with Grange and Hill of Grace on price and sophistication but it is not a wine that is meant to be drunk next to Grange – it is a polar opposite I would say.”

And for the Levantine Hill owner that means a super premium wine that can be enjoyed immediately rather than put away for ten years or more as you stare at the calendar anxiously waiting for it to be opened and enjoyed.

“This is about a wine that you can open and drink now and you don‘t have to wait ten years. I read a quote in a book a while ago from Baron Philippe de Rothschild who said he wants his wines to scream to be consumed now.

“We are building wines that will last the distance but that‘s approachable now, life’s too short to buy a bottle and give it for ten years before you can come near it. We are the polar opposite to that.”

Originally published as Yarra Valley’s Levantine Hill takes on Penfolds Grange and Henschke’s Hill of Grace with a super premium $800 bottle of wine called Optume