If Spinifex is not one of the most exciting Australian producers to have cropped up in the last decade then we don’t know much about wine. In short, we rate them in the top few Australian producers and we’re obviously not the only ones. Spinifex was started by Magali Gely and Peter Schell in 2001. Magali and Peter’s background is the key to understanding the styles of wine they produce.
Magali comes from a family that has been growing wine near Montpellier for over ten generations, whilst Peter is a trained oenologist and has made wine in Burgundy, Switzerland, Provence, the Minervois, the Languedoc, Bordeaux and New Zealand. Peter and Magali’s combined backgrounds have led to the belief that the vineyard is paramount in the production of unique, ultra-premium wines, and that the wines they produce should not only reflect their sites; showing richness and intensity; but also be well-balanced and a pleasure to drink.
Spinifex wines are typically produced from very old, 50 to 120-year-old, low-yielding vineyards in the Barossa and Eden Valleys. Peter Schell is not only making some of the most exciting wines in the Barossa, but he is also transforming our assumptions about this region. His choice of site and his intuitive, hands-off work in the winery continues to yield dramatic and certainly anti-formulaic results. As a whole, they represent something even more remarkable: the possibility of redefining the style of wine we might expect of the Barossa Valley and Ranges. Welcome to the new Barossa.
