It must be exciting to work for a company that has invested $100 million in Tasmanian wine acquisitions over the last six-odd years. Lowestoft winemaker Liam McElhinney has scored one of the best jobs in Australian wine.

His tenure in Tassie started bumpily, though. Liam arrived from New Zealand in 2019 as a consultant, brought in by Peter Fogarty (of Fogarty Wine Group fame) after the purchase of the ailing – but crucially important – Winemaking Tasmania winemaking facility. That part is fine, but the timing was rubbish as McElhinney got entangled in COVID lockdowns and spent 8 months in Tassie without his family.

That feels like an eon ago though now, with Liam now living on the Lowestoft property with said family (that have apparently acquired an Aussie twang), and helming Peter Fogarty’s growing Tasmanian empire, which now includes a patchwork of properties, including the Ossa vineyards, Clover Hill (along with Taltarni), and even a thousand-hectare walnut farm on the east coast that is gradually being converted to vines.

To be clear, no one is doing that in the industry at present. Such investment and ambition just doesn’t happen anymore – not in a world where most wineries are running on fumes/wet rebates. I’d want to work for Peter Fogarty too.

And Lowestoft is a vineyard crown jewel too.

Literally across the road from the Mona museum (well, across the road from the pump track that’s next to Mona) in what is now Hobart suburbia, the Lowestoft vineyard has some history. Planted in 1986, with an unheard-of-at-the-time 8000 vines/hectare density, this vineyard has some of the oldest Pinot vines in Tassie, although the fruit has been sold off to the likes of Stefano Lubiana and Treasury, often for sparkling and absorbed into bigger blends (because it’s only 3 hectares), and only now bottling under the Lowestoft label. Just to underline the history, some of the surrounding property was sold off for housing years back, and the property is now surrounded by a network of roads called naf wine names like ‘Chardonnay Drive’ and ‘Beaujolais Court’.

The Lowestoft wines aren’t wholly from this block, but increasingly the rare top dog La Maison releases are. And the rarity has only levelled up since the Lowestoft La Maison Pinot Noir 2022 won the Jimmy (Watson trophy) in 2023.

To be honest, I’ve barely seen these wines in the flesh, which is why I was extra interested to go along to a fancy lunch hosted by Liam to try them this week. It sounds like the most ridiculous first-world problem/cry me a river, etc., but the goal is to avoid wine lunches because the hours involved vs. the wines tasted typically don’t match up, and you just burn through your week. Give me a punchy 90-minute masterclass, and we’re good.

These Lowenstoft wines, though; I’d jostle for a taste. And the food at Sydney’s Eleven Barrack? Super. There were these Kurobuta pork tomahawks served on share plates and I was casually dropping a ‘are you going to have some more’ type comments because I wasn’t going to waste that. I could have eaten a dozen of the superstar duck liver parfait choux with Banyuls jelly (pictured above) or the red velvet cake (below).

Meanwhile, let’s look at a few wines?

There was a collection of Burgundies for comparison’s sake in this lineup too, and they were both instructive and welcome. They served to remind that a) Burgundy is just Chardonnay and Pinot Noir b) Tasmanian wine is that good c) I can’t afford to drink the Burgundy I want to drink.

Wines tasted:

Thalia Sparkling NV

Lowestoft Estate Chardonnay 2024

Lowestoft La Meilleure Chardonnay 2025

Lowestoft Estate Pinot Noir 2023

Lowestoft Jacoben Pinot Noir 2024

Domaine Amiot et Fils Morey-Saint-Denis 2017

Lowestoft La Maison Pinot Noir 2024

Domaine d’Eugénie Vosne-Romanée Clos d’Eugénie 2018

Anne Boisson Bourgogne Blanc 2022

Domaine Latour-Giraud Cuvée Charles Maxime Meursault 2023

Domaine Taupenot-Merme Gevrey-Chambertin 2023

THE VERDICT

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