From one small, family-run outfit to another, we now head to Mildura and home to Capogreco Winery Estate. This is the first time we’ve carried these wines – and we’re pleased as punch to have them. Quantity over quality may define much of the winemaking in the Murray Darling, but Bruno and Elvira Capogreco have done things differently – which is to say the old-fashioned way – since they established the estate in 1976. Bruno’s history stretches much further, some six generations back to roughly 1821, when his family started making wine in Calabria in Italy’s deep south.
Fortified wines occupy much of the focus here, too, but the table wines are well worth a look in. The 2024 Nuda Chardonnay is a mighty convincing effort – and not least for the $29 price tag; macerated and matured in stainless steel, it’s a serious skin-contact wine, with all the dried stone fruit perfume, chewy texture and honeyed length you’d want from a wine twice the price. The 2006 Elysium Shiraz, meanwhile, gives you a rare glimpse at a reserve wine for a bargain ($41!) and all the tertiary characters that come with it: dried fruits, savoury spice and resolved tannins. Light the fireplace.
The Capogreco stable of fortified wines runs a pretty wide gamut, starting on the sweeter, lighter end with the 2018 Crema Apera, an old-school Aussie style made from palomino fino grapes. They recommend it as a palate primer, poured over ice with a slice of lemon to make the big hits of honey, golden figs and orange blossom more refreshing. You almost never see Australian Marsala, but they do the ancient Sicilian style proud with the NV Marsala All’uovo; obviously, it’s great for cooking, in everything from veal to tiramisù, but the nuances here – stewed apricots, salted caramel, toasted hazelnuts – are all the more captivating on their own.
Is the 1986 Muscat among the oldest new-release dessert wines on the market? Who knows, but it’s sure hitting its straps now, silken, sweet and spiced just enough to keep things interesting. And because it wouldn’t be a whole sweep of fortifieds without Port, they’ve got two. The first, the 1995 Rossellina Port, is an Italianate interpretation using homegrown shiraz, seriously robust and charmingly rustic in its overripe, jammy way. The second, the cab-sauv-based 1991 Supremo Port, is a deeper yet mellower expression, heavy on concentrated black fruit and the subtle influence of American oak. Nightcaps all around!