Two great neighbours combine under one great (and affordable) wine label

Iain Riggs and Peter Wiggs have a shared love of the Hunter Valley’s winemaking history. Together they make semillon and shiraz to be enjoyed in the present.

Iain Riggs and Peter Wiggs in the Hunter Valley. Picture: Supplied

Iain Riggs and Peter Wiggs have taken different paths to end up in almost the same spot. Riggs, despite a stubborn refusal to age, is one of Australian wine’s elder statesmen: four decades at the helm of Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley, significant shaper of Australia’s wine show system, driving force behind the esteemed Len Evans Tutorial and mentor to many.

Peter Wiggs left school at 16 then worked in bottle shops and scaffolding before returning to study, doing pretty well in finance and establishing one of Australia’s most successful private equity firms. Several years ago, as both men were contemplating the kind of retirement that highly motivated types turn into a time-management tweak, they found themselves neighbours on a narrow road that winds its way through Hunter Valley history.

Riggs and his partner Sally Margan have the Mistress Block vineyard on one side of that road, Wiggs the Cote vineyard a little further down on the opposite hill. Both properties were once part of the sprawling holdings of Alfred Wilkinson, the man credited with the establishment of viticulture and winemaking in Pokolbin, with his 1866 purchase of five properties stretching across the Brokenback foothills. It’s a Wilkinson relic that inspired Riggs and Wiggs to put an ampersand between their names and start their own wine label. There are 12 open fermenters on the Cote vineyard, the only surviving structures of a long-gone winery. They have been restored, the first four of the row wax-lined and with a roof installed over them; it is there that shiraz from the surrounding vines is fermented.

This is a really impressive project, built on a love of great vineyards and the history behind them. There’s a manageable scale to this venture, both men doing it because they want to, not because they have to. They’ve been loading up their own cars and acting as delivery drivers to get the wines out there. And in a market scattered with vanity winemaking projects with overly ambitious price tags, the relative modesty of the pricing here is commendable.

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RIGGS & WIGGS MANGERTON VINEYARD ‘BLOCK ONE’ SEMILLON 2024 $35

The Mangerton vineyard neighbours the Cote, an old Wilkinson block restored in the 1970s. Block One faces south on clay loams. This is a semillon of real presence and punch. Lime pith and leaf, some snapped twig. Lemon zest, dry straw and burlap. Great now, greater in a decade. 11.5% alcohol, 95 points

RIGGS & WIGGS COTE VINEYARD ‘OVP’ SHIRAZ 2024 $50

Classically mid-weight and graceful, rippling with red cherry and red licorice characters, with underlying savouriness suggesting turned earth and the scorched bits of great char siu. Supple and sinewy, with a gentle, assured momentum, this is a soulful Hunter shiraz of great potential. 13.5% alcohol, 95 points

RIGGS & WIGGS CULLARIN VINEYARD SHIRAZ $40

In 2010 Wiggs bought Canberra’s oldest vineyard, established by Dr Edgar Riek on the shores of Lake George in 1971. Fragrant violets, a twist of white pepper, a sprinkling of mace. A gorgeously high-toned aromatic exoticism. The palate is crushed velvet in liquid form, tapered with highly pixelated tannins. 13% alcohol, 96 points