Gosh, we love Pennyweight Wines. And who wouldn’t? Wife-and-husband team Elizabeth and Stephen Morris set up shop in 1982 and they’ve been quietly doing things the small-batch and sustainable way ever since, long before “low-intervention” production became a household phrase. Along with fellow pioneers like Sorrenberg, Giaconda and Castagna, they put the sub-alpine town of Beechworth, Victoria on the map as a region to be reckoned with. And we have them to thank for what are largely considered the finest iterations of Sherry and fortified wine in the country. Incredible stuff.
While those fortifieds are the stuff of legend, the table wines are secret weapons in their own right. The 2019 Beechworth Pinot Noir offers up all the regional trademarks you could ask for: mushroomy perfume, dark berry fruit, sweet spice and a swirl of vanilla with soft-spoken tannins to close (and how about that bottle age!). The 2024 Beechworth Gamay is a younger, brighter thing, more tuned into the tartness of cranberries, pomegranate and sour cherry, all given lift by racy acidity. And then there’s the muscular 2019 Rutherglen Durif, which puts the D in ‘Dad Wine’ in all the right ways, dense with chewy blackcurrants, dark plums and the gentle bitterness of cacao nibs. If you need refined-as-hell reds to impress the in-laws over Easter, look no further.
As for the Sherry-adjacent side of things, the Constance Fino has become something of an Australian benchmark, right up there with the true-blue Spanish stuff in terms of yeasty complexity, green-apple tang, almond-y nuttiness and briny salinity. There’s no doubt the Woody’s Amontillado is a paygrade up in terms of richness and complexity, but it’s still lighter and livelier than you might expect, and drinks like candied walnuts passed through an old farmhouse cider press. And while the La Serena Oloroso (also available in 375ml format) is the sweetest of the lot, it never tips over the edge, keenly balancing the flavours of golden sultanas, chestnuts and orange zest with its sharp and salty finish. Get onboard.