2010 WayWood Years 98 Nebbiolo

"The only Way is up..."

This funky label commemorates a significant point in the life of winemaker Andrew Wood rather than the vintage, which is 2010. 

Andrew, once a sommelier now a trained winemaker, marks years of significance with the "WayWood Years range". '98 marks the year he completed his Sommelier studies before deciding to study winemaking and move from Britain to his adopted home in Australia.

Andrew and his lovely wife Lisa operate a boutique McLaren Vale winemaking outfit concentrating on Italian styled wines that have tonnes of flavour without massive tannins. These are definitely food-friendly wines that will go with everything from pasta to a massive Angus fillet.

This wine style has its traditional home in the Piedmont region of Italy, but the fruit Andrew uses is from Blewitt Springs within the greater McLaren Vale region.

The WayWood philosophy is all about nurturing individual parcels of fruit to produce wines that truly express site, vintage and variety.  In order to produce wines reflecting their passion, this often means throwing the rulebook out the window in order to follow flavour.  This approach definitely works.    

The fruit for this wine spends 18 months in fine-grained new French oak, with a medium toast providing a subtle charred cedar character with a fine tannin structure. It then slumbered in bottle for a further twelve months before its release in the Spring of 2013.

The colour is inky, suggesting a heavier wine than this lovely medium bodied drop, that is full of flavour without being overwhelming. Aromas of fruitcake, raspberry and nutmeg.

The flavours are layered with aniseed, fruitcake, bramble, acetate, tar, roses, and nutmeg. There is big acid and big length and at 14.3% its fairly big alcohol for a Nebbiolo, especially while retaining balance. Drink this wine way into the next decade.

Enjoy with a nice spicy dish such as Fettuccinne Putanesca!

They only produced 100 dozen of this wine so if you want one, best get yourself into their cellar door. Whilst there, enjoy some of the fantastic food that Lisa puts together. This is a little bit of Italy in McLaren Vale. Delizioso!

$50 per bottle from Cellar Door or $250 for a 6 Pack.