Ravensworth winemaker Bryan Martin is one of the most creative and inquisitive winemakers we've ever met and embodies everything we love about small artisanal Australian producers. He is humble, irreverent, committed to the pursuit of excellence and always looking to explore. This pack of his 2022 estate releases is a wonderful example of his talent and creativity. Not to be missed.

• 2022 Ravensworth Estate Riesling
• 2022 Ravensworth The Grainery
• 2022 Ravensworth Seven Months
• 2023 Ravensworth Estate Gamay
• 2022 Ravensworth Estate Sangiovese
• 2022 Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier

2022 Ravensworth Estate Riesling

The Ravensworth Estate Riesling from Bryan Martin's home block is a show-stopping release.

This spent 10 months on lees inside a huge 700L ceramic egg, slowly enriching the textural components which set this apart from other Rieslings from the region.

The acidity here is absolutely electric. As is the mouthfeel. It's long and pure and incredible to drink right now, though time in the cellar won't hurt it either. This is one of Bryan's most exciting releases to date.

His homegrown fruit truly coming into its own. Only made in tiny amounts, this is one of our favourite Australian Rieslings of the year.

Matured and aged in foudre barrels.

95 points
"Brilliant, vivid riesling of textural nuance, savoury elements, bright, citrusy get-up-and-go with intensity and yet approachability hand-in-hand. It smells and tastes like fresh limes, green apples, halva and green almond with a crackle of minerally zing underlying. Refreshing, but a wine of more depth than regional staples of the variety, with a gentle mellowness appearing. Released right in the zone, thank you. Delicious."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

2022 Ravensworth The Grainery

Ravensworth 'The Grainery' is a unique wine in the Canberra wine landscape.

Made from a blend of Viognier, Marsanne, and Roussanne fruit sourced from both Bryan's vineyard in Murrumbateman, this wine is all about balance in the mouth.

The way Bryan juggles whole bunch ferment, skin contact and time on lees in making this wine is masterful. It fills the palate with all kinds of shapes and flavours and it maintains a lightness and freshness that this style or blend so often lacks.

Another big win for Bryan Martin and a must-try for lovers of textural whites.

94 points
"A medium weight and exciting white wine for its compelling some of parts. Slipperiness, a little grip, fragrance, stone fruits, oatmeal, lively acidity, baked pears, cashew nuts. All happening, all so well balanced and evenly spread. It drinks with utter charm and a sense of quiet complexity. Great now, but I reckon cellaring works too"
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

2022 Ravensworth Seven Months

The Ravensworth Seven Months is one of Bryan Martin's favourite wines to make. Excitingly, this year, the 2022 release is all estate-grown fruit from Bryan's own vineyard in Murrumbateman.

The classic three-variety blend of Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Gewurztraminer fermented on skins in ceramic egg for seven months (hence the name), with this extended skin contact adding all sorts of colour, texture and complexity.

This year's might be the best to date, a glorious mouthful of fruit that's slippery, grippy, textural and thought-provoking.

93 Points
"A bright orange colour in the glass. Inviting. It does good chalky pucker and chomp with refreshing undertows of saline acidity. Amongst that, mandarin, dried citrus peel, pear, dried and fresh, lime and faint lychee. Yes, a fruitiness, prettiness even, but it works in tandem with more nutty savoury notes and the general tang of herbs and skin ferment zing. Attractive drinking in its genre."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

2023 Ravensworth Estate Gamay

This is just the second-ever release of Bryan Martin's estate-grown Gamay. This versatile French variety strikes a lovely balance, offering more weight and colour than Ravensworth's Tumbarumba version, thanks to the warmer Canberra District climate where it is grown.

Crafted by one of the leading winemakers in the Canberra district, on the Ravensworth estate near Murrumbateman, this wine underwent partial carbonic maceration for 10 days (ala Beaujolais), followed by traditional fermentation and maturation in a mix of new and used French oak barriques for 12 months. 

The result is a bright, fresh red wine with a little more structure and savouriness than its Tumbarumba counterpart. It’s light, fruity, and delightfully easy-drinking.

Duck pancakes with plum sauce and a glass of this would be best mates. 

92 Points
"Go forth! Crisp and clean, bright and fresh. Tart cherries, cranberry, truffle, brambly blackberry and some kombu-umami-like characters. Lighter weight and fruity, not quite savoury but that herbal lilt is pleasing and counters the red fruit swishes well. Easy drinking style, refreshing and cool. Not particularly complex, but all the pleasure elements in place."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

2022 Ravensworth Estate Sangiovese

Bryan Martin's Estate vineyard in Murrumbateman has Sangiovese vines planted that go back 20 years. He has been refining his approach to this wine for many years now and has seemed to find a more traditional method of production as the best course of action.

This is his home-grown fruit sent to huge 2800L foudre for 22 months ageing. As Bryan explains, "A timeless method for this variety that allows it to progress slowly without gathering layers of oak."

The proof is in the pudding and it is clear that this is one of the more impressive Sangioveses in the country. Firm and gravelly with beautiful Autumnal aromatics, this is Sangiovese with a refined Australian accent.

94 Points
"A live wire from 2022. Much more about vivacious personality than the more firm and savoury and stately expressions of past vintages – and nothing wrong with that! ... It’s delicious, refreshing, vibrant as an expression. It does a lighter shade of sangio so well."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

2022 Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier

The Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier has become one of the most sought-after wines in Canberra, owner/winemaker Bryan Martin now consistently producing a wine of glorious complexity from his homegrown fruit.

Bryan's Shiraz is Northern Rhone Valley inspired, with a splash of co-fermented Viognier adding perfume and mouthfeel to what is a remarkable Shiraz. Given Bryan Martin's previous day job as assistant winemaker at Clonakilla where he, alongside Tim Kirk, produced Australia's foremost Shiraz Viognier, it comes as no surprise to see his own wine reach such great heights.

This 2022 version has been keenly anticipated and it does not disappoint. If you fancy cool climate Shiraz then this is simply a must for your cellar and/or dinner table. Exceptional.

94 points
"It’s loaded with spice and florals, not overtly viognier-flexed but there’s pretty, sweet elements and a glossiness to texture that gives you an idea about the white grape inclusion. The perfume, cinnamon-clove-cardamom brown spices on red cherry, dark plum, green olive and some bergamot tea and alpine herb notes. Flavours roll similarly, quite rich in a way but a brace of tightening tannins, dusty, powdery, do well. A succulence and depth in tow. It feels premium, fine, good, concentrated, complex. A richer expression from Canberra District would be the other comment. It does the trick and well."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)