I tasted this at a Crittenden Estate lunch with winemaker Rollo Crittenden late last year and was smitten with it. The Pinots were of a very high standard too. Actually the there wasn’t an average wine served. Oggi is the Italian word for “today” and the OGGI label is designed to showcase wines that Rollo is trialling in the winery. The exact make-up and nature of each wine will vary from year to year. There are twelve different labels for this year’s OGGI designed to represent a wine that will be, in a way, transient.
This is a blend of 50% Friulano (an old variety from south-west France which found a home in Italy), 30% Savagnin and 20% Arneis. Skin contact, wild fermented, pressed to old barriques, eighteen months on gross lees. No surprise that it’s a textural white. Waxy and creamy in equal measure with a gentlemanly phenolic handshake. No raw displays of machismo here. It’s obviously a skin contact wine but it isn’t obsessed with that fact and I find it all the more appealing as a result. Sweet stonefruit, kumquats, tart orange marmalade and citrus peel with a yeasty note of apple cider. Ginger and pepper spice. Very balanced and absolutely moreish. 93
Region: Mornington Peninsula
Alcohol: 13.5%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $35
Tasted: February 2014