Featured Winemakers

Champagne Arlaux

A Champagne for Champagne Connoisseurs

The buzz around Grower Champagnes continues to build. In a (Champagne) world where not a hectare remains unplanted, and competition for Champagne grapes – of all qualities – is feverish, it is in these wines that outstanding value is found in Champagne. Not cheapness. True value: Champagne with terroir nuance, and inherent, vinous, intensity. As expansion of the Champagne vignoble proceeds, these qualities can only increase in value.

Champagne Arlaux is a small family run estate in the tiny Premier Cru hamlet of Vrigny, on the Montagne de Reims. The estate grows just 10 hectares of Premier Cru vines, including Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay.

The Maréchal family have lived in Vrigny for centuries, and their ancestors established Arlaux in the late 1700s, on ex-hospital vineyards they were able to buy from the new state after the French Revolution.

Today Christine and Philippe Maréchal run Arlaux. Devoted attention to detail informs every decision, and speaks of the Marechals’ sincere, quiet commitment to putting quality first.

Only grapes from the estate’s own Premier Cru vineyards are used. Average vine age is high. Green, environmentally aware, viticulture in the form of “La Lutte Raisonée” has been practised here since 1997.

Only the first pressing is used for Arlaux Champagnes (the remaining ‘tailles’ are sold off). At 30%, the proportion of reserve wines in the NV cuvées is high. Ageing on the lees is unhurried: from four years for the ‘basic’ cuvées and up to ten for the vintage. Disgorgement is carried out to order, and entirely by hand; Christine is convinced that the automated (and today pretty ubiquitous) thermal alternative compromises her wines.

These effortlessly intense Champagnes therefore require (and receive) only the lightest of dosage, and age superbly. Their richness and intensity derives solely from old, low yielding vines in a special terroir, and not from the tampering hand of dosage, or liqueur d’expedition. Prices remain very reasonable for this level of quality and refinement, despite growing recognition and mentions from the international wine press.

Chateau Carignan

High Scoring Premiere Cotes de Bordeaux

We’re immensely proud to be connected to Château Carignan. The proprietor Andy Lench - founder of Bordeaux Wine Investments, Ltd in the UK and President & CEO of Bordeaux Wine Locators, Inc. USA - purchased this beautiful chateau in 2007.

Château Carignan is located at Carignan de Bordeaux, approximately 10 kilometres east of the city of Bordeaux. Its 63 hectares (155 acres) of vineyards are situated in the Premières Côtes de Bordeaux AOC. As with other Right Bank appellations (Saint Emilion and Pomerol), Merlot is the dominant grape variety.

Château Carignan produces four distinctively different and critically acclaimed “modern” Bordeaux wines, representing superior quality and exceptional value that can rival the classified growths. The 2008 Chateau Carignan Prima won a Gold Medal at the famous Concours de Bordeaux Vins d'Aquitaine competition in 2011 for the third consecutive year. The 2010 Chateau Carignan and Chateau Carignan Prima have been labelled 'sleepers of the vintage' by Robert Parker.

The range:
• Château Carignan Prima (‘the alternative Bordeaux’)
• Château Carignan
• L’Orangerie de Carignan (second wine)
• Château Carignan Rosé
• Carignan Blanc

Turkey Flat Vineyard

From the Barossa Valley

These wines have already become firm favourites with both our clients and staff! 90 point ratings from prominent critics just add to the attraction. In fact the intense, concentrated fruit from these ancient vines have set Turkey Flat wines apart and have made them sought after the world over.

It was on the banks of Tanunda Creek where bush turkeys once roamed that pioneer Salesian settler Johann Friedrich August Fiedler planted the first Shiraz vines in 1843. His vines flourished and the land – Section One, in the Hundred of Moorooroo – was bought in 1865 by Gottlieb Ernst Schulz, a successful butcher who established a thriving retail business among the vines.

Butchering developed into dairying, but the vineyards were always kept until Peter, a fourth generation Schulz, and his wife, Christie, made the transition from grape growing to winemaking. They transformed the historic bluestone butchers shop into the cellar door and heart of their Turkey Flat wine business, and made sure that the vines that Fiedler planted so long ago - now gnarled and twisted - are still a vital part of the process.

The winery has established a consistent track record over the years and it is a fine portfolio from top to bottom.

Having hosted a tasting of the entire Turkey Flat portfolio in the BWI offices with proprietors Peter and Christie Schulz, we are delighted to offer you their collection of wines. Some are only made in very limited quantities.