We only recently had the pleasure of meeting Keira O'Brien for the first time and had a chance to taste her fledgling Tasmanian label, Rivulet. We were sold from the get-go. These are exciting Tasmanian wines that we immediately fell in love with and we cannot recommend them enough.
Keira is a well-established winemaker on the island, having made wine for Winemaking Tasmania for many years and now taking up the mantle at the well-known Freycinet Vineyard.
Rivulet Wines is her personal label which she makes alongside Anna Pooley and Justin Bubb in the Pooley family cellar. There are some really tremendous wines coming out of this cellar - little pixie dust in the air, perhaps?
"Rivulet Wines is an opportunity to work with fruit I see as a bit special and tilt the winemaking a little more playfully. It's all small scale stuff, and the name is a bit of a riff on that - tiny trickles of wine, rivulets of sweat on the brow."
- Kiera O'Brien, winemaker
Keira has an intimate knowledge of many of Tasmania's best vineyards from her time at Winemaking Tasmania and has sought out some of her favourite parcels to serve as the basis for her own label. She has a playful yet skilful attitude towards winemaking, only releasing very small volumes of high quality, highly expressive wines; which is fitting as the term "rivulet" literally means "a small stream of water".
O'Brien likes to make wines "with texture, precision and purity in mind", crafting them from favoured Tasmanian varieties such as Pinot Noir and Riesling, as well as a few more obscure things such as Sylvaner and Siegerrebe.
The reviews for her 2021 Pinot Noirs and aromatic whites are outstanding and she was recently named as one of the finalists for this year's Young Gun of Wine awards. If you love a small, premium Tassie label, Keira O'Brien and Rivulet are names you should absolutely be getting to know.
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