M
aybe it’s her Chinese and Japanese ancestry. Maybe it’s her cross-continental upbringing, spanning Europe, New Zealand and Asia, and her appreciation of the vast and varied cuisines she grew up eating that came along with it. Or maybe it’s her time spent as a viticultural researcher at Cornell University and the years she clocked as an oenologist with Treasury Wine Estates. Whatever the case, winemaker Ray Chen brings a one-of-a-kind background to Rongo Wines, the label she founded in Victoria with friend and fellow maker Josh Liu in 2021.
Leading the charge in the line-up is a duo of rieslings: the 2024 Reflection Riesling and the 2024 Rhapsody Riesling, both from the granite soils of the Strathbogie Ranges. The former takes cues from the German style, using only free-run juice with a kiss of skin contact and letting it sit in tank on lees for six months. Chewy in texture with lots of yellow and green apples to taste, a hit of ripe Meyer lemon and leafy herb perfume. The latter sees 30 days of skin contact, with ferment and élevage in old oak, giving rise to a structured and savoury orange wine that zips and zings with gingery spice, muddled orange peel and sandalwood incense.
The Prelude Aglianico is a newcomer as of 2024, sourced from Chalmers’ Murray Darling vineyard. Unlike the weightier Old World style, this is a fresh, flirty take you should chuck in the fridge before opening: juicy with wild strawberry and glazed cherry flavours, fragrant with rose petals and shot through with delicate peppery tannin. Yarra Valley fruit, meanwhile, forms the basis for the 2023 Rhea Syrah, a ripper of a cool-climate expression laden with red plums, purple flowers, cassis and woody herbs. Semi-carbonic maceration for a bit of extra volume, some whole-bunch work for added verve.