2024 Sinapius Esmé Gamay, Northern Tasmania

I just love this little wine. It's a juicy, sapid gamay – all flint struck and wild-eyed. It squiggles and constantly shifts in the glass, demanding your attention while slaking your thirst with the snappiest of saliva-inducing mineral lines. Airy red fruits and cranberry and exotic spice, smoked meats and twiggy bits and bobs with a splash of blood orange, Campari and ruby-red grapefruit. It's captivating drinking. Don't be afraid to pop it in the fridge for a while if the situation warrants such an action. Very nice indeed! Drink to 2032.

95 points & Special Value Dave Brookes for Halliday Wine Companion, September 2025

The fruit for this wine comes off a dry-grown, high-density block planted in 2013. From the dry and warm 2024 season, the grape bunches were handpicked ahead of a traditional two-week long whole-cluster carbonic maceration. The pressed wine was matured for seven months in a combination of a 1500-litre oak foudre and well-seasoned oak barriques and finally bottled without fining or filtration in February 2025.

About this producer

Vaughn Dell and Linda Morice were just 24 years old when they purchased the then tiny 2-hectare Golders Vineyard in Pipers Brook on Tasmania’s north coast in 2005 and re-named it Sinapius. Originally planted with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, they set out to add two new sections of vines with updated clones of both varieties, and adding Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gamay. The two new sections are close planted at extreme density of 700 and 10,250 vines per hectare respectively, the aim being for naturally low bunch weights and yields per vine.

Vaughn unfortunately passed away at the end of the 2020 vintage. Linda is now solely responsible for the dry-grown vineyard and winery and continues to build on their important legacy. Under her stewardship Sinapius has cemented its place in the top tier of Tasmania’s wine producers.