Wine By Some Young Punks
Brain Food…
Selecting a good wine is a complex & intriguing process.
Navigating your way through a sea of shelves and bottles, hundreds of tiny little question marks bubble happily in your brain…vintage? grape variety? price? recommendation? label? taste? region?
Eventually, all these puzzle pieces struggle together to form a seemingly coherent thought, upon which a bottle is plucked triumphantly from the shelf and whisked away to the counter, Happy as Larry.
It is with this in mind that I must tell you I’ve been slightly naughty – the other day I bought some wine based purely on the look of the label.
Love them or hate them, all label designs by ‘Wine By Some Young Punks’ will have the same effect on you – they’ll jump out at you as if you’ve been smacked over the head.
Bursting with colour and character, each variety has a design, and subsequently a story inimitable to any other. This story is communicated through a variety of visual languages, whether this be Pulp Fiction, Gothic Romance, Graphic Novel or Street-style Graffiti art. The concept behind each label is documented on the Wine By Some Young Punks website, which is well worth a visit.
I very much admire these winemakers for their bravery in breaking the traditional mould, and founding a contemporary winemaking ethos:
“We make charismatic wines that are true to what we think ‘wine’ should be about… Each wine, each vintage, and each label is a moment that will never come again… We believe that awesome wine is a powerful aid to creativity; there is always the danger that while drinking a bottle of Punks you may also be pushed to random acts of winemaking, it definitely keeps us ticking over…”
Tasting The Story:
Monsters, Monsters, Attack! 2011 Riesling is a sweet, musky and seriously enjoyable sensation from the Clare Valley. Its feminine and floral aromas will tickle your nose, and its complex palate of apple, musk & lychee-like flavours will tease your tongue.
It’s fairly sweet, but not overpoweringly so; I’d pair it with a vegetarian meal, chicken, or salmon. If you’re a fan of moscato, you might also enjoy this Riesling as an after-dinner wine. It retails for about $23 a bottle.
Fierce Allure 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon is a bio-dynamic, single vineyard drop from the McLaren Vale.
As the name suggests, some serious tannins will hit your mouth during that first sip. But once the wine has been aerated, the tannins will soften and open your palette up to exquisite red fruit flavours, laced with the spiciness of herbs, cinnamon & liquorice.
Enjoy it with a hearty winter meal…making sure there’s a nice portion of succulent red meat somewhere on your plate. I recommend cracking the lid a day or so before you intend to drink it. It retails for about $30 a bottle, so you may as well get the most out of every drop!
Post Script
The story behind each of the Young Punks is an interesting one. I’d recommend doing a cheeky Google search on Jen Gardner, Colin McBryde and Nic Bourke for a little bit of background, as the Young Punks website doesn’t really give you too many details.
Apart from that, all I can say it that their ‘new world’ winemaking ethos has seriously impressed me – I look forward to seeing what the Punks come up with in years to come. 
