Fraser McKinley at the Project Independence Lunch. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
What does it take to create a wine so popular it has a waiting list in the thousands? In Canberra to pour wines for a fundraising lunch held for Project Independence, cult-favourite Barossa winemaker Fraser McKinley shared some of his secrets.
Fraser and his wife Andrea moved to the Barossa in 2006 and created the hands-on, tech-free wine label Sami-Odi. But he wasn’t always on the path to winemaking.
“I studied design at university, but I was working in hospitality to get through uni – as you do – and I just got hooked on wine,” Fraser told Region.
“By the time I finished studying, I was actually more interested in wine than design!”
Despite having no formal training, Fraser threw himself into the world of wine by working for other winemakers and playing with his own winemaking on the side. This resulted in Fraser being named Australia’s Young Gun of Wine in 2014, putting Sami-Odi wine on the map!
Project Independence founder and chair Glen Keys, with Fraser, John Runko and CEO Michael Claessens. Project Independence aims to provide homeownership for people with disability. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
Fraser’s approach to winemaking is simple: “We don’t use anything that plugs into the wall. No pumps, no cool machinery, nothing with buttons.”
This means that all the vines are pruned by hand, and the grapes are harvested by hand. Fraser then uses a French method of processing called pigage, aka foot stomping.
“Lots of other wineries would use a machine to remove the stems, but we keep them on and do whole bunch fermentation. So the bunches of grapes are broken down over the course of a few weeks by foot.”
The wine is then extracted with a ratchet-controlled barrel press – “it’s good exercise!” – and moved by gravity into barrels, where it stays for over a year to age. Fraser and his wife also bottle the wines, dip them in wax, label and box them all up themselves.
It’s a hands-on, labour-intensive process that could become draining, but Fraser says that they’ve managed to get the balance just right. And because each element occurs at a different time of year, they move on to a new task before they get too tired of the old one.
Sami-Odi wines are only sold directly to consumers via a mailing list, but there’s a waiting list of around 2400 to even get onto the mailing list! And Fraser has no plans to increase his output of wine.
“It works because of the scale. We’re very comfortable with the amount that we farm and make.”
The trip to Canberra also allowed Fraser to visit the National Gallery for the first time, which he described as a real treat! He also reminisced about some Canberra region wines that informed his journey into winemaking.
“Wine is so evocative and I remember really vividly the first time I tasted the Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier. It was at my first Wine Australia event. I’ve loved those Clonakilla wines for a long time.”
The Project Independence lunch was raising funds for the organisation that’s championing a new model of homeownership for people with an intellectual disability. Project Independence homes generally include a number of independent apartments around shared spaces where residents can create a shared sense of belonging and empowerment.
The mission of Project Independence is to “transform the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing a safe, caring, and sustainable environment where they can thrive with the support and guidance of their community and where they can build financial security by investing in home equity”.
Find out more about Sami-Odi Wines and Project Independence.
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