BILLY BUTTON
Star Cellar Door
0418 559 344
billybuttonwines.com.au
Jo Marsh, former Seppelt Great Western winemaker and Alex Phillips make up the entire winemaking, cellar and laboratory team: processing fruit, managing ferments, monitoring maturation times, blending and bottling for around 115 tonnes of fruit annually. They are quite the dynamic duo.
In just four years, Jo has turned Billy Button into a major player in the Alpine Valleys. She also works as a contract winemaker to six of the area’s 13 grape growers-turned-producers and makes wine in China’s Ningxia province.
While Billy Button produces some very fine shiraz and chardonnay, it must be said that alternative grape varieties – led by fiano, arneis, friulano, sangiovese, tempranillo, saperavi – are where the real excitement lies. The Camp Street cellar door is pretty minimalist in design, leaving the wines to speak, which are perfectly presented in Riedel glasses, and is managed by Grant Williams. Cheese platters on request. JENI PORT
OUTSTANDING WINE: 2016 Billy Button The Honest Fiano, A$25