Hot Property: Southern Light Vineyards
It's not Buddy Holly. It's winemaker Anthony Fikkers, and he's got a wine project and a half on his hands. PHOTO: Campbell Mattinson.
Southern Light Vineyards is a name you need to know. It is because the initial wines are good – they were grown on the highest vineyard at Main Ridge, on the Mornington Peninsula – but also because this endeavour is the baby of Joval Wines, and Joval doesn’t do anything by halves.
Eventually there will be a few tiers to this range; Southern Light Vineyards owns three vineyards, two of them in the Yarra Valley, the third on the Mornington Peninsula. All the wines will be either chardonnay or pinot noir. So far, all we’ve seen are two wines from the elevated 5.5 hectare Ghost Gum vineyard at Main Ridge in Mornington. 2021 was the first release; 2022 is the current.
These wines are made by Anthony Fikkers, who not only gives the impression of being smarter than your average bear, but is also ex Giant Steps, De Bortoli (Hunter), Maddens Rise and Mac Forbes, among others. Fikkers ran his own brand for a period too, which memorably featured (among other wines) the Fikkers Two Bricks label. Fikkers not only knows his way around cool climate viticulture (he has both winemaking and viticulture qualifications) but he’s also seen first hand, over a longish period, both the right way to do things, and the wrong way. Crucially, he also knows what it’s like to put it all on the line under his own name.
Given that Southern Light Vineyards is owned by Joval, it will no doubt be ambitious. If you could tailor-make past experience to help realise these ambitions, you’d reckon that Fikkers is pretty much the perfect fit.
The Joval group, if you’re not aware, is owned by the Valmorbida family. This family has incredible experience in wine (and food) retail, wholesale, distribution and production. Some of this experience is outlined, quite fascinatingly, here. Joval own both the Mezzanine and Red+White wine distribution companies, and again if you’re not familiar, read the list here and weep.
If there’s one advantage Southern Light Vineyards will have, it’s stellar distribution.
This is of no relevance here, but when I was 18 years old – and I’m now 56 – I went out with a woman who worked at a company called Conga foods, which I think was owned by the Valmorbidas. This woman took me to my first ever ‘wine tasting’, at the Mitchelton winery. She also introduced me to Panetone, which Conga imported. I have no idea where Conga fits among the various arms of the Valmorbida family but in any case, I digress.
Joval have done it all in the food and wine space, pretty much, though there’s a slight difference with Southern Light Vineyards. Here, they are not buying an existing winery or brand or stock. Here, for the family’s first time in wine, they are building everything from the ground up: own vineyards, own winemaker, own winery, own label, own distribution. I once lived next to a fanatical fly fisherman and he said to me, one day, that the proudest moment of his life – outside of his family life, of course – was when he caught a trout off the back of his own property, using a fishing road that he had fashioned himself, and a lure that he had designed and made with his own hands. Southern Light Vineyards is an endeavour all the greater than catching a single fish, of course, but suffice to say: it all runs deeper when every step is your own decision, and your own investment.
In other words, this is the first time that this significant wine and food family has gone for absolute gold in a wine production sense. It’s got legacy written all over it.
“We really value aspect,” Fikkers says. “Southern Light Vineyards is all about aspect. It’s about light, morning light. I wouldn’t say that we value aspect above everything else but it is really important to us. It’s important for quality, but it’s also important for style. We value morning sun rather than hot afternoon sun. The vineyard at Main Ridge, for instance, is in total shade from about 3.30pm onwards.”
I’m not sure if I tasted the 2021 Ghost Gum Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines. I’ve now though tasted the 2022 Ghost Gum Chardonnay, and 2022 Ghost Gum Pinot Noir, a couple of times, with food and without. According to Fikkers, who as I say has extensive experience making wines in the Yarra Valley, “2021 was the first time that I’d made wine from Mornington. In 2022 we really sharpened the wines up; I’m much happier with them.”
Formal reviews of the 2022 releases are available on The Winefront site via the links above. What I’m happy to report here though is that the 2022 Ghost Gum Chardonnay is looking seriously good right now. As a friend – who has been in the wine business for a long time – said to me about this wine, “I was shocked at how good it is.” All the above story is one thing, but in the glass this wine is the goods. Drink the 2022 Ghost Gum Chardonnay and you’ll see why I’m keen to, in a way, get in first in drawing attention to this Southern Light Vineyards project.
I may have been a little harsh on the 2022 Ghost Gum Pinot Noir on The Winefront, time will tell. I raised my score by a point after tasting it a second time. It’s a complex and brooding wine, and it will age well. I have a feeling, when this wine hits its peak, Ghost Gum and Southern Light Vineyards will be much better known than they are now.