2022 Quealy Turbul Friulano, Mornington Peninsula

Skin-contact friulano in amphora, then basket pressing to used French oak results in a light gold hue with plenty of phenolics, so it’s textural and grippy. Pineapple, peach fuzz, dried pear, quince paste and lots of chewiness yet not heavy or cumbersome. Some nuttiness and salted plums too in an otherwise super-dry and savoury wine. Thoroughly enjoyable. Drink to 2028.

93 points Jane Faulkner for Halliday Wine Companion, August 2024 

Friulano (a.k.a. Sauvignonasse, or Sauvignon Vert) is a variety originating in the Alpe-Adria region that binds together Italian Friuli with Austrian Carinthia as well as Slovenia. While the leaves and grape clusters of the variety resemble those of the Sauvignon Blanc, the flavour of the wine the two produce is very different, with Friulano typically exhibiting as a light, soft and floral white wine. The Mildura vineyard of Slovenian migrant Denis Pasut was the source for Quealy’s cuttings that were in 2003 grafted onto existing block of Chardonnay vines in their Balnarring vineyard.

More about this wine

In winemaker Tom McCarthy’s words, Friulano is a bugger to work with, but well worth the effort. Inspired by his father’s 2008 T’Gallant Claudius wine and time spent in northern Italy, Tom McCarthy’s 2022 Turbul Friulano is a selection of the estate’s ripest Friulano, de-stemmed and spontaneously fermented as whole berries in an 800-litre terracotta amphorae. The wine was allowed to go through malolactic conversion and rested three months on skins before it was lightly sulphured. The basket pressed and racked wine was then matured for twelve months in oak puncheons of which 20% were new and bottled without fining or filtration.

The wine pours a vivid, deep yellow that translates to the brisk, savoury and saline palate with a core of spicy citrus flavours. Fleshy, textural and delightfully chewy!

About this producer

Quealy is a Mornington Peninsula producer known especially for its aromatic white wines.  Established in the early 1990s by Kathleen Quealy and Kevin McCarthy, their son Tom McCathy has been the chief winemaker since 2019, working the solid foundation his parents set up for him and continuing the house style which includes no pressings (and therefore no need for fining), no acidification, low and late sulphur additions and a reliance on old oak.

Four vineyards lie at the heart of the portfolio. The Home Block in Balnarring was planted in 1982 and has some of the oldest Pinot Noir vines on the Peninsula. This is also the home to Quealy’s oldest Pinot Grigio, and the aromatic varieties of Moscato Giallo, Friulano and Riesling, as well as some more recent plantings of Malvasia and Ribolla Gialla. A little Chardonnay from the original plantings also remains.

The Musk Creek vineyard in 1997. Perched atop Main Ridge, overlooking Westernport Bay and the heads, it’s the coolest site in the portfolio, bestowing exceptional late-ripening Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. On the red soils of Merricks North, there’s the Tussie Mussie vineyard, and back in Balnarring we have Campbell & Christine, again planted by Quealy (for the owners) in 1994.

Each of these sites is managed entirely by the Quealy team and, with the current exception of Musk Creek, all are farmed organically. Quealy’s full-time viticulturist Lucas Blanck (son of organic Alsace vigneron Frédéric Blanck) has overseen a major renovation of the Balnarring home vineyard that underpins the quality we’re seeing in today’s wines, including the implementation of organic certification, dryland farming, a rotational cover crop program and replanting nearly 20% of that vineyard.