“My focus is working with good people throughout the whole process,” cool-climate winemaker Hamish Young tells wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

LET’S face it, deep breath, wine isn’t a necessity of life.  It’s something that we enjoy and it’s paid for out of discretionary income. 

Hence, just as with other items that are good to have rather than essential to meet our needs, wine is subject to the vagaries of fashion.  

My daughter introduced me to what she believes is a winery that has hit the mark on the fashion front in that these wines appeal to her generation. This is reflected in two wines that I have enjoyed despite them being fashionable rather than because of that factor.

The Mada 2022 Nebbiolo Rosé was on offer at the Parberry Lane bar and restaurant that’s nestled away in a cosmopolitan development in Kingston. 

This is a funky, urban site more reminiscent of Melbourne inner city than a Canberra venue. 

The rosé was $14 a glass and had a complex flavour of spice and pears and a rich mouth feel. Roses can often be bland, but this one has complexity. 

“Nebbiolo is a great variety for rosé because of the fine tannins. This element ensures you have a beautiful structural rose as you can build the palate around those tannins,” says Hamish Young, the winemaker and owner at Mada. 

Hamish told me that he works with an incredible number of good people and “cutting out the crap” that people often put up with in daily life is one of his goals to ensure he has freedom to produce his wines.

“My focus is working with good people throughout the whole process,” he says. 

“From the talented viticulturalists, right through to amazing bars, bottle shops and restaurants that represent our wines, I’m not about butting heads with anyone.”

The second wine is a blend of three whites, gewurztraminer heavy (60-70 per cent) with pinot gris and riesling. It’s marketed under the name Blanc and costs around $30 a bottle. I found it to be different from the Alsatian style of white blends that are often pinot-gris dominant.  

The Blanc is sweet yet spicy with a ginger back palate. It is a good food wine and went well with salmon that was cooked with citrus. 

I asked Hamish how he had come up with this blend and he said it was through patience working the gewurztraminer berries so as to soften the aromatics slightly to produce a vibrant wine with texture that, at one level, could just be enjoyed, drinking in the sun, but when peeled back could be examined as a multi-layered wine.

Hamish is, like me, a refugee from NZ. He was born in and worked in Gisborne and moved to Australia in 2006. He learned the art of winemaking in the cool climate area of Gisborne and did his studies through the Eastern Institute of Technology in Napier, home to NZ’s best art-deco architecture. 

Hamish moved to Australia to get more experience and he and his now wife, Rebecca, moved to the Barossa where he worked for Eden Road Wines that now has a base in Canberra.

He came here to continue working for Eden Road. He told me he settled here because he loves making the cool-climate style of wines that Canberra, Hilltops and Tumbarumba is renowned for.  

He started Mada in 2016 and now has a half interest in a riesling vineyard, which he leases jointly with his good friend Nick O’Leary.  

“It’s out towards Gundaroo and is three hectares or so. The harvest from there came off in early April and the bulk of that crop will go into a straight riesling,” he says.

I can’t wait to taste the latest vintage, as the 2021 riesling has been sold out, such is the demand for this wine. Fashionable or not, Mada has hit the mark.  

“Style is something each of us already has, all we need to do is find it.” –Diane von Furstenberg