After taking home the "Best New Act" at the 2018 Young Gun of Wine awards, and this week being named James Halliday's Best New Winery for 2019, more and more attention is being put on this brotherly partnership from Tasmania. We've seen their wines mature and develop over the last few years, and it's safe to say, Mewstone is absolutely a winery to watch!
Mewstone Wines is a joint venture between Jonny and Matt Hughes, two Tasmanian born brothers and certified wine-heads, and their respective wives, Margie and Cathie.
The two families have invested in a small plot of land on the banks of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in the charmingly named locality of Flowerpot, on the south-eastern tip of Tasmania.
Matt works the grapes, Jonny makes the wines, taking what he learnt from seven years as assistant winemaker at Moorilla and re-imagining it for his own label.
They boys make two ranges, the Hughes & Hughes wines offer some of the best value to be found in Tasmania at the moment, and the Mewstone premium range focuses on exception single-vineyard wines made in a style that Jonny wants to drink.
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These aren't your usual straight up and down Tasmanian wines. Jonny is constantly refining and experimenting. Learning more about their small vineyard and zeroing in on his personal winemaking style.
His takes on Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are built with measured oak influence, looking more for texture than the traditional style of tight, lean, flinty dry white from Tasmania.
The Chardonnays are voluptuous but with great drive and walk the new school old school tightrope beautifully.
In the reds, his primary focus is on Pinot Noir. While playing in the winery, he uses differing amounts of whole bunch or whole berry ferment, looking to strike the balance between sweet bright fruit and a more savoury, earthy style of Pinot Noir. He's killing it with Pinot. The wines are flat out delicious and well worth the bucks.
Finally, he makes a teeny tiny amount of Syrah from their block in Flowerpot. It's sleek, slender and spiced, closer to a fine-boned Northern-Rhone expression than most in Australia. The current release from 2017 is exceptional.
James Halliday called them, "an utterly exceptional wine producer". Keep an eye on this ambitious pair as their star continues to rise.