Smalltown Vineyards "The Good Luck Club" Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

The Smalltown block was purchased in 2016, which consisted of 40 hectares of 28-year-old Shiraz and Cabernet in the premium Ebenezer District of the Barossa Valley. For this cabernet, the fruits are sourced from old vines in the Gomersal, just south of the winery. This basket-pressed wine, forming the Good Luck Club, is racked to barrel for completion with natural fermentation, and was aged in new and tertiary French oak for 24 months. The oak lends a subtle texture and structure to the fruit leaving the palate delightfully fresh. Hence this is a bright, varietal Cabernet that wears its oak lightly as a structural veil rather than anything more monstrous.

Regards to the label, the dual-facing label to shows either The Good Luck Club (front) or The Bad Luck Club (back) illustrated in that most animated of media: 19th Century Japanese Kabuki masks. It’s about the highs, lows, ayes and noes of winemaking, chance and the mad undulations of human existence.

Tom White has been making wine since 2002, making wine for his family’s winery in the Adelaide Hills, where he made Shiraz, Cabernet, Merlot, Semillon and Chardonnay. Tom then established his own contract winemaking business in 2008 and made wine all over South Australia in the Clare Valley, McLaren Vale, Riverland and, of course, the Barossa Valley where Tom finally put down some roots. In 2012 Tom purchased a vineyard in Marananga, a small town nestled in the heart of the Barossa between Seppeltsfield, Greenock and Stonewell making the wine at Rolf Binder the Winery before Tom’s own winery The Curator Wine Company began operating in 2020. Tom’s focus on special sites, basket presses, natural ferments, minimal intervention, indeed as little work as possible dovetails neatly with Smalltown’s existing philosophy of lazy, feet-up winemaking and Rolf ’s established practices.

Happily in January 2022 Rolf Binder the Human donned his winemaker’s stubbies once more and is now working with Tom at The Curator Wine Co on our very own Smalltown Vineyards! Yay! Rolf ’s sister Christa is still hugely involved in the Riesling and Chardonnay whilst Rolf tinkers with the reds whilst Tom runs the show. We will continue to evolve the Smalltown Vineyards range and labels to reflect the specific strengths and passions of this new partnership. There are some great old vineyards new to us this year to exploit as well as the ongoing wealth of experience, joy and handsomeness that Rolf and Christa bring to Tom’s contemporary winery.

Tasting Note