Great Southern Natural Pet Nat 2022

Variety: 70% Chardonnay 30% Pinot Noir.

Alcohol Content: 11.8% – 6.98 Standard Drinks

Colour: Light pink.

Serving Suggestion:  kimchi, savoury cheese and charcuterie plates,

About The Wine

This Great Southern Natural Pet Nat 2022 is a blend of organically farmed 2022 Chardonnay and 2022 Pinot Noir grapes from the Great Southern’ s Mount Barker sub region that were hand harvested and pressed to a stainless-steel tank where it underwent natural fermentation. The wine was racked and bottled and left to complete fermentation in bottle to provide a light but steady fizz. Juicy and enticing aromas of sourdough and strawberries on the nose and citrusy characters of ruby grapefruit and blood orange on the palate with a savoury finish. Perfect summer thirst quencher!

Comments from Wine Buyer Steve

Finally, we have sourced a fantastic bottled Pet Nat from WA and if you have never had one before they are amazing, refreshing and unique! A juicy, thirst slaying, frothy pink wine with enticing aromas of sourdough and strawberries on the nose and citrusy characters of ruby grapefruit and blood orange on the palate with a savoury finish. Perfect for a hot summer’s day!

It’s going to fly out the door at $22.00 per bottle. The winery sells it for $39.00 so it’s a real bargain for our customers.

My Score – 97/100 – WACC Gold Medal

About The Producer

The wine maker who produces this awesome natural 2022 Vintage Pet Nat makes wines that are uniquely expressive of their origins. They currently lease and manage four small vineyards in the Mount Barker and Porongurup sub-regions of Western Australia’s Great Southern. They feel that the cool climate and ancient decomposed granite soils of the Great Southern lends itself to low yielding vines producing high quality fruit, which is necessary to make expressive minimal intervention wines.

They farm the vineyards using organic practices eschewing the use of synthetic chemicals. They don’t irrigate the vineyards forcing the vines to send roots deep into the sub-soil. Their fruit is all hand harvested and crushed by foot, commonly employing whole bunches including the stalks. Both primary and malo-lactic fermentation occur spontaneously with native yeast and bacteria. Movement of the wine is kept to a minimum and no fining or filtration is used. They believe that these natural practices as well as being better for the environment, help create delicious wines that express a sense of place.

What is a Pet Nat?

Pétillant-naturel, or a pét-nat refers to wines produced in the méthode ancestrale, an ancient and natural way of making sparkling wines, predating the méthode champenoise that we are more familiar with. All sorts of old-world traditions are employed to create these simpler, more rustic sparkling’s, but essentially these wines are bottled before primary fermentation and are finished without the addition of secondary yeasts or sugars.   Pét-nats are often cloudy, unfiltered, and capped with a crown seal if they are in bottle or in our case inside a can! The end product is also exciting and unpredictable, opening each bottle is a surprise, suggestive of the time and location where it was bottled.

Pét-nats can be white, rose or red in colour (which makes them super versatile when pairing with foods, you’ve pretty much got it all covered). They vary enormously in carbonation, from almost still, to tiny-prickly bubbles, to effusive effervescence! Each bottle/can needs to be well settled and cold before opening to minimise the latter. Thanks to all those natural yeasts and sugars pét-nats are usually slightly funky on the nose and to taste. They are zingy and bouncy with an appealing array of flavours.