The cool-climate wines at Ossa are aiming high
When Liam McElhinney bends to tie his laces, wine show prizes fall out. The talented Tasmanian has turned his savant-like gifts into liquid gold for Osso wines.
Most people would look out over acres of walnut trees and see nothing but nuts. Rod Roberts looked out over his farm and took in that view and saw wine. Roberts is a successful agribusinessman from several generations of Tasmanian farming stock. His Swiss-born wife Cecile has dirt from even greener pastures in her veins. Wine wasn’t the motivation for the purchase of their farm near Swansea on Tasmania’s east coast, but the idea of a vineyard on the property was one that, as tends to happen when good custodians find good land, quickly began to grow.
Roberts had a keen interest in wine and was a partner in Tasmanian Vintners. So it’s not surprising he began to look at the soils across the property and wonder how they might express themselves through wine. For a full year after they purchased the 600ha they call Belbrook, Rod and Cecile camped on the property, feeling its rhythms and needs. They selected a site where a natural amphitheatre had formed and planted 20ha of chardonnay, pinot noir, shiraz, riesling, grüner veltliner, pinot gris and sauvignon blanc. Their ambitions were carefully coded in the choice of name for the label: Ossa. Tasmania’s highest peak. Aim high.
Fruit from promising early crops was supplemented with carefully selected parcels from Tasmanian Vintners’ extensive resources and shaped into something special by Liam McElhinney. McElhinney is the hottest thing in cool-climate winemaking. When he bends to tie his laces, wine show prizes fall out (including last year’s Jimmy Watson Trophy), and his savant-like touch is evident in these Ossa wines. Each year the vineyard is seen and heard more clearly in the wines, and it’s only a matter of time before they are made entirely from estate-grown grapes. The mountain is being climbed. The summit is within sight.
OSSA GRUNER VELTLINER 2023
$60
An energetic, tightly focused wine that validates the optimism some have for the variety’s future in Tasmania. Waxy lemon zest and a scraping of pith, river stones and a soft salinity. A pleasing, gentle fleshiness upon entry that transitions seamlessly to a crackling, quartzy compression. Length and precision a key strength. 100% estate grown.
13.5% alcohol; 93 points
OSSA CHARDONNAY 2022
$90
This is proof of concept, the justification for building excitement at Belbrook. Grilled nut and curry leaf, buttered popcorn, yuzu curd. Sinewy and taut, a bottle full of coiled springs. A smidge of waxy texture rolling through the mid-palate before tightening through a long, crystalline finish.
13% alcohol; 96 points
OSSA PINOT NOIR 2022
$120
The McElhinney pinot whispering is clearly on show here. Sour cherry, rhubarb, some macerated strawberries and the straw they were grown in, a dusting of five spice. Sinewy and slightly sappy, a subtle underlying gaminess. An energetic pop of mid-palate fruit and a corset-like twist of grippy tannin.
13.8% alcohol; 94 points
