Operating a 1.5ha organic vineyard on George’s Road in Waipara, North Canterbury, the Silver Wing range has grown to include about a dozen wines. Wild ferments, No filtration, no additives and plenty of skin contact are all methods used to produce a range of wines that aim to be complex, textural and characterful wines. All of them are fermented and/or matured in ceramic eggs or french barrels, with stainless steel tanks used only for settling and bottling purposes.
Many of the wines are labelled ‘Nada’ – from when they began the label and wanted to show the ethos of ‘nothing added’. The Nada Pet Nat 2022 spent three days on skins. It is mostly Sauvignon Blanc with some Riesling. Fresh and citrussy – winemaker Andrew Fox puts this character down to the fermentation in ceramic egg, with the movement in the wine keeping the freshness. It also tastes like a daisy looks – with a golden core, but a bright, white outer. It has that ‘natural wine’ sense of cloudiness and phenolics, but a clean, apple and herbal energy to the palate.
From the Home Block vineyard comes a wine called Skinny Dip 2020. This one uses the same varietals as that Pet Nat, but sees three weeks of skin contact. It’s an onion skin pink colour and has a tart, musky, bruised-apple, golden edge that is also quite phenolic and ‘al dente’ on the palate. It features some carbonic winemaking with the berries kept whole, and has a lovely bite of pithy flavour at the back of the palate.
They also got fruit from the Petane Vineyard in Esk Valley that was flattened by the floods earlier this year. A Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2020 shows those clean, green, citron, tight and bracing acidity styles that are growing in trend in Hawke’s Bay in particular. Andrew uses ‘Cavin Aphrodite’ barrels for this wine and attributes some of that lemon line to that vessel. It’s lively but also has a dash of toastiness on the nose that doesn’t come through on the palate.
The latest in the Frankenfurter range of wines that they make is a Frankenfurter Pet Nat 2022 from Waipara. A sherbert of bubbles, with the flavours flowing in and out of focus on the energetic palate. 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Sauvignon Blanc there’s a distinctive sweet-shop character of gummy raspberry. A pink apple-skin phenolic and kirsch note round things out.
A couple of Pinot Noirs are on show – the Nada 2020 Pinot Noir is from Waipara and again shows some carbonic maceration winemaking. On the nose is a very european ‘sous bois’ perfume that doesn’t seem to gel with the tight youthfulness of the palate. A perky drive of acidity over what seems to be also quite tart fruit left me feeling the wine wasn’t in balance – needing some texture and integration. The 2018 Nada Reserve Pinot Noir also didn’t really wow me either. It has a cherry, cranberry and cassis nose, but then a green bite to the palate with nettle and fennel notes that didn’t fall into place for me – it’s like a harder version of the first Pinot.
Although the Pinots didn’t appeal, the younger, fresher wines certainly have masses of approachability and will undoubtedly find a market that is looking for these styles – and I think their time has come. Bring on a Pet Nat picnic in the spring and get a few of those cracked open.
