($24; 12.5% alcohol; screw cap)
The name refers to Greg Trott, Wirra Wirra founder, who without ever admitting to being lost, tended to be vacant from everywhere he was supposed to be at the time. Now we presume that he lies where we buried him in the Strout Road graveyard, but I also doubt that he stayed put there: he doesn't answer most days. His curious spirit certainly revisits the winery. I sat there at lunch recently with a striking woman who swore she felt his guiding hand on the small of her back.
This is the sort of drink Trott would have with his scallops or salt'n'pepper flounder in T-Chow. It's clean and lean, like Savvy-b can be, grassy like gooseberry or oxalis. Fresh as a meadow in spring. The form of the wine, its texture, is not your ordinary water-and-acid version - like so many examples of the blonde sauvignon - but offers more generosity of form without losing its sense of purpose. Which is to refresh and cleanse. Then it goes away. Nothing more complex than that.
Wirra Wirra The Lost Watch Hand-picked Adelaide Hills Riesling 2018
($25; 12.5% alcohol; screw cap)
Nothing lost or even vaguely fleeting about this baby: it's solid, staunch Riesling, with a whiff of lightly smoked ham hanging above its dense citrus rind. In its clear, pure intensity, it is as complex as many red wines, with firm healthy flesh and very fine, powdery tannin drawing its lemons-and-limes to a long, calm finish. This one sticks around.
I had a friend, a businessman, who tended to buy out rivals he didn't particularly like, so he could drive around in their cars. He seemed to think he could work out what made them tick if he drove their cars. He was a Sauvignon blanc drinker: about one bottle per hour per head; faster if the business excited him. One day, as we broached bottle #2, he fixed me with his acquisitive eye and uttered a statement that was as close as I saw him get to an apology. He referred to his attraction to Sauvignon blanc. "I know what you serious wine blokes think about Sauvignon blanc," he said. And then, without an upwards inflection: "You'd say that Riesling was the greater drink. Wouldn't you."
Well yes, I would. But he was of French Swiss extraction, and nursed a life-long suspicion of the German Swiss. I reckon he thought Riesling was part of their plot to get his car. Bottle of this; Wah Hing; salt'n'pepper egg plant would be the main goal of my plot.
Wirra Wirra Mrs Wigley McLaren Vale Rosé 2018
($20; 13.5% alcohol; screw cap)
There were times, not that far back, in which nearly all the Grenache went into raspberry-simple, lolly-sweet pink drinks. Now winemakers have learned to make proper red wine from that lovely grape, Grenache rosés are not so common. This one's a few steps above most of that tired thoughtless stuff of yore. It's been made with gastronomic intention: it's no afterthought. It smells like raspberries, cranberries and redcurrants, even when chilled, which is how to best approach it. Maybe confectionary gels made from those fruits. That jelly texture is important here: it holds its comforting form in the ice bucket.
But chilling, while being pretty much the main idea in spring, also makes the wine's residual sugar stand out. It's not overtly sweet, but maybe along the lines of a modest spatlese, and seems more so, as I say, served real cold. Which makes it rock and roll with stacks of Thai ginger and chilli. Or, if you happen to forget church on the next sunny Sunday, try it with that eleven o'clock bell and a crumbly chèvre. If Trott's there too, avoiding church, can you please remind him to call the winery?
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