Surprise, surprise! See Saw Wines!
Surprises can be good or can be bad. Either way they tend to create memorable moments. On a recent visit to Orange, New South Wales in Australia, I came across one pleasant surprise after another. Some were absolutely mind blowing surprises, resulting in a slew of memorable moments — right from the moment we landed.
I was visiting Orange with a group of writers attending the Wine Media Conference in Australia. We were met at the Orange airport by Justin Jarrett, from See Saw Wines — which was the first surprise, sort of, as I knew we would be tasting wine when we landed but I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the agenda to realize Justin would be there, pouring wines as soon as we got off the plane.
The next surprise was the first wine he poured, the See Saw Prosecco. As soon as he opened the bottle, all I could think was, “Wait, what? a Prosecco from Australia? Is that even allowed?” But I contained my angst and tasted the wine. Very good. Lively fruit aromas, such as yellow delicious apple and melon. It has a really good bubbliness and slightly tart apple flavors, with a touch of salt. “Whether it’s technically a Prosecco or not, I like it,” ran through my mind.
Justin then told us it’s made with organic grapes and is sold as an organic wine in Australia. OK, I like that too.
It’s made with the charmat method, as you would expect from a Prosecco, where the secondary fermentation (which makes the bubbles) is done in a large, pressurized steel tank. He used only Reisling juice for the dosage, no sugar. Another (small) surprise.
Finally, I had to ask, “how can you call this a Prosecco when it’s not from Italy?” To my surprise (once again), he said it’s made from the Prosecco grape. I always thought Prosecco was just a DOC name for sparkling wines made from the Glera grape. I have now learned that Prosecco is the name of the grape but they’ve renamed the Prosecco grape to Glera within the EU to allow the Prosecco DOC there to “own” the Prosecco name. Surprise, surprise.
We then moved onto mind blowing surprises, or at least mind blowing wine, when he pulled out a wine he calls “Marge.” Marge is a cloudy looking red wine and kind of looks like it’s not finished, to the unknowing eye. This is a Pinot Noir, fermented with a carbonic maceration method, which is something Justin has been experimenting with. This is a technique where winemakers don’t press the grapes, but put the full grape bunches into a stainless steel tank and pump carbon dioxide into the tank. In this oxygen-deprived environment, the grapes begin to ferment from the inside out. This approach also means heavy skin contact during fermentation, the grape skins that is, imparting texture and flavors to the wine.
The result of all this is magical. It has dusty cherry, white pepper and orange peel aromas and bright cherry flavors with a touch of spice and a nice minerality. Because it’s something new he’s experimenting with, he asked us if we would serve this like a rosé (i.e., chilled) or like a red, which was a great question. It is somewhere between the two. I would serve this with a slight chill, but not as chilled as you would a rosé. I absolutely loved this wine. This is a game changer. The kind of wine I’d love to see more winemakers produce. My mind is blown.
He then poured his Pinot Noir Rosé (made like a normal rosé), followed by his Pinot Noir red wine, both of which were outstanding. Then there was SAMM, a skin contact Sauvignon Blanc & Marsanne blend, also made with carbonic maceration, which he did not open but I couldn’t take my eyes off it, wondering what magic could be found within that bottle. The curiosity is still killing me.
The See Saw name is a reference to finding balance, up and down. That up and down has to do with elevation. See Saw is currently the only producer in Orange to have vineyards at 700, 800 and 900 meters. This allows them to grow grape varieties at different elevation to see how elevation impacts the wines. Justin also sees this as a way to plan for the future, moving some varieties to higher vineyards as climate change creates warmer conditions.
Additionally, from vintage 2019 forward all their wines are certified organic and vegan.
At this point I’m sold. I’m on team See Saw. So where can I get some of these wines? Not in the US… yet. They are interested in exporting to the US, and I selfishly want that to happen through a distributor who sells in my region of Ohio.
My biggest regret coming away from this tasting was not buying a bunch of these wines to bring back with me. I left there thinking, “I need to find some of these wines and buy them before we leave Orange. Particularly the Marge and SAMM” But I didn’t come across them during the rest of our short visit and didn’t end up with and opportunity to buy them. Now I can only dream of them, and hope I’m surprised when I walk into my local wine shop one day.
