You're more likely to hear the silent soaring sounds of a wedge-tailed eagle than you are the scree of a falcon, standing out amongst the vines of an old and abandoned vineyard in Hunter Valley Wine Country, while picking grapes to make some wine. Unless, that scree comes from one of the staff of The Falcon bar, in Newcastle, standing waist high in tall grass, trying to dodge the local population of snakes and spiders.
"There had to have been at least 60 different breeds of spider running around out there, I reckon," says Sven Barnard, bar manager and licensee of The Falcon. "Not to mention any snakes hiding out in the grass."
What's a cohort of bar staff doing standing out amongst the vines of an abandoned vineyard in the Hunter Valley? Picking grapes to make wine, obviously.
"The Falcon have always been great supporters of ours. Towards the end of last year, we had the idea to collaborate on a project together to make a special wine for the bar," says Dirt Candy winemaker Daniel Payne.
Around the same time, Payne got word from a friend of a friend that a vineyard near Broke had fruit growing on it that no one wanted. Old, abandoned, dry grown vines, haphazardly trained up along star posts, bearing beautiful bunches of red and white fruit; muscat and semillon, to be exact.
"Some said I was an idiot for putting these two grapes together, but, as with all my wines, my approach is simply, if it's delicious, do it," Payne says. "Muscat's very aromatic and has a nice bit of sweetness to it, while the semillon is chock full of acidity, and that helps to structure the wine, especially a pet-nat ... which is what we wanted to make," Payne says.
Pétillant naturel - or, pet-nat for short - is the ancestral kin of modern bubbles, where the wine finishes its primary fermentation in the bottle, trapping carbon dioxide, plus a small sediment of yeast lees. They're a more rustic (less serious) rendition of your typically refined sparkling wine, like Champagne.
"We've been selling Dan's pet-nats for a couple of years now, and they're always popular with our guests. We thought it would be cool for the staff to be involved with the making of a wine, so that they understood the process a bit more," Barnard says.
"I think you get more of an emotional, more intimate connection with wine when you've played a part in creating it," adds Payne. "As opposed to 'well, the rep came in and told me this and that about the wine', you know?".
You can taste a bottle of The Falcon by Dirt Candy either online or via their pop-up cellar door, located on Wine Country Drive, in the Hunter Valley. But, for the most delicious, most meta pet-nat effect, I suggest you imbibe a bottle of The Falcon wine while sitting in situ inside The Falcon bar itself.
$35 per bottle online. dirtcandywine.com.au; or buy at The Falcon, 10 Pacific St, Newcastle East
The Falcon pet-nat wine features a gentle fizz bound by a slightly creamy texture that reminds me of drinking spritzy lemon curd and fleshy summer honeydew melon. Fresh, fun and very yum.
