The Limestone Coast runs along the south-eastern edge of South Australia, with soils based on... you guessed it, limestone. This gives wines grown on it real zip and zing – for example the main soil type of Champagne is limestone! This is drinking really beautifully – loads of crisp green apple plays off against riper nashi pear, with complexing notes of cinnamon and ginger. This warming spice doesn’t impede the refreshment of the wine; instead makes it more interesting and delicious! Most of the great Pinot Gris in the world is grown in Alsace, France, but Australian and Kiwi grape growers and winemakers are catching up fast!

We’re not the most sentimental of people, but even we’ll admit that when it comes to wine, some things are just meant to be. Take Ottelia Wines, for example. Winemakers John and Melissa moved to their patch of land in Coonawarra with the intention of only staying there for one season - the eventual aim was to move onto one of Australia’s famed wine regions once they’d honed their skills - but once that first harvest was bottled, they were hooked. The limestone soils, the iconic Aussie gum trees lining the vineyard, the way the grapes would ripen… it was all a bit too perfect, especially for John; a man who’d fallen in love with winemaking at the age of 17, and who has never stopped being amazed and enamoured by the process since. He knows the Limestone Coast well, its wine growing regions of Coonawarra, Wrattonbully, Mount Benson and Mount Gambier, their different soils, their climates. That’s the background, the knowledge and the enthusiasm John brings to Ottelia. As is increasingly the case with 21st century Aussie produce, Ottelia wines are stripped-back, direct, and are all about letting the fruit itself do the heavy lifting. There’s no excessive oaking, no messing around with excess tannins, no dodgy chemical intervention… this is back-to-basics viticulture, in which the grape, the soil and the sunshine are the undeniable stars of the show.