By Tania Phillips
They say if life gives you lemons make lemonade but for the Bent Road Winery life gave them smoky grapes so instead they made Fumé Rosé.
Bent Road Winery duo – counter-culture winemakers Glen Robert and Andrew Scott have produced a smoke affected Tempranillo Rosé.
The pair saw an opportunity for a side project during the 2020 bushfires and set out to challenge the concept of “smoke taint” and its potentially damaging portrayal in the media.
The Fumé project also aimed to give back to the community by deepening the understanding of working with smoky grapes and raising money for the local Rural Fire Brigade. ($2 per bottle will go to the Ballandean Rural Fire Brigade).
Bent Road Keeper of the Cellar Door and Wine Club Curator Amanda Rudge said the winery was now holding a “Smokin Fume” weekend 11-13 November to raise more money for the Ballandean Rural Brigade, have fun and introduce more people to the wine.
“I’m sure something like this could have happened somewhere along the line but that is kind of one of the reasons the boys have put this into place – learning to use grapes affected by smoke,” Rudge said of the Fume Rose.
“As we know already again this season in America and Europe the bushfires are going crazy so they were like – yeah this is something that is happening so we need to learn how to use it instead of hide it. This is what Fume is all about bringing that smoke from the bottom of that barrel, bringing it to your nose, to your palette instead of trying to hide it.
“I drink it every weekend when we do tastings, its very unique, its unusual and this Rose Fume 2020 is meant to be had with smokey food it is actually enhanced by smoky cheese or a woodfired pizza, smoked almonds and all of the cool kids have a smoker in their backyard. That’s why the boys kind went, well everyone is lining up for peaty whiskies and having a smoker well lets make smoky wines because there is nothing else we can do with it unfortunately we can’t make it into a regular wine we have to bring out those smoked bits and pieces instead of trying to hide it because it’s very strong.”
“These grapes – which are Tempranillo are actually from one of our biggest growers down south so they were about to drop hundreds of tonnes of unsold grape. So the boys went fifty-fifty with this grower – these aren’t our grapes from Ballandean but we use this grower all the time. We try to use regional produce as much as we can but every now and then we have to jump over the border for some. Unfortunately this region – the wine industry is growing in leaps and bounds – but we just can’t plant enough vines quickly enough to keep up with production. With the drought and bushfires, they had many many vintages in a row that there was just such limited product that was coming off.”
She said the Rose Fume, this lovely creation, this bottle of wine sees two dollars from every bottle of wine go to the local volunteer bush fire brigade who worked tirelessly in the 2020 bushfires to keep areas like Bent Road safe.
“It’s super exciting, on the Friday, the 11th of November that’s when we are actually presenting our local guys a massive cheque of $3.5k that we have already raised from wine sales,” Amanda said.
“And then this weekend that we’ve planned is about raising more because we’re just about to come into summer again and yes it’s going to be wet but they’ve already started. “We just want to give back because they gave so much for so long, this is a way that we can assist and we get to drink good booze in the process, it’s a win-win for everyone I reckon.”
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