Guest blogger Sam Scott is a winemaker for our future, addicted to seeking new discoveries, focusing on Italian grape varieties…
I love the Adelaide Hills for the elegant styles of wine we can produce and Italian varieties for the textural and savoury wines they make. These are the wines for our future and my today, I can feel it, new and exciting flavours and styles, bring it on. Talking about our future, we are getting a glimpse at warmer and drier conditions. Yes – I know I am saying this after a f*%ing wet and freezing finish to winter, but two months ago people were considering irrigation because soil moisture was so low and more extreme weather events had occurred.
La Prova is my experiment without end, nourishing my addiction to textural and savoury wines, seeking new discoveries, taking the path less travelled and focusing on Italian grape varieties. Fortune favours the brave. We are not trying to emulate Italian wines but to merely find the types that are perfectly matched to our climate (present and future), soils and geology, that produce delicious, sometimes excellent wines, with our unique stamp on them, with the foundations at the individual vineyard level.
Why Italian varieties – because they are TASTY and GROW WELL here, they also complement our lifestyle and changing the culture, which is evolving with similarities to many Mediterranean countries, where wine is an integral part of the mealtime, as is drinking in moderation.
While modern viticulture can achieve pretty much anything, I believe our purpose should be to match grape growing to the environment, not to fight it, and therefore match varieties to the conditions in our backyard. To do this, we need to find grape varieties that are well adapted to our environment (and future environments). Fiano is La Prova’s first and best example of this, where a variety has survived millennia, suited to but also adapting to the landscape in which it grows.
Scott wines are made from the classic varieties best suited to the Adelaide Hills, with their unique, cool climate, elegant styles.
Cheers
Sam
