Welcoming BONDAR WINES

BONDAR WINES

Rarely does such a new winery make such a fast and international splash. Bondar Wines came to life in 2013 when husband and wife duo Andre Bondar and Selina Kelly purchased the historic Rayner Vineyard at the southern tip of Blewitt Springs in McLaren Vale. In this warm region, as famous for its huge fruit bombs (we’re looking at you, Mollydooker) as for its legions of natty rebels doing the polar opposite, Andre brings to bear his deep appreciation for mid-weight wines of profound balance, wines that are fragrant and bright and complexly structured. Bondar wines exude self-possessed confidence, joyfully straddling the Goldilocks zone of weight and acidity too often obliterated by the pendulum swing of mercurial tastes.

The Bondar Family

Andre Bondar has a hard-won pedigree. After finishing a post-graduate degree in winemaking, Andre did vintages at home and abroad, working in Oregon and California, at Tyrell’s in the Hunter Valley, and at Padthaway Estate, Tintara and Mitolo in McLaren Vale before settling at Nepenthe for seven years (one of nearby Adelaide Hills’ first domains) where he climbed his way to head winemaker. In 2012, Andre left Nepenthe to acquaint himself with Syrah at its source, working at the wonderful Domaine Alain Graillotin the Northern Rhône, a time Andre considers highly influential in honing his own vision for terroir-driven wine farming in McLaren Vale. Meanwhile, Selina Kelly Bondar had been trained as a lawyer but left the desk job to also join the world of wine in the marketing arm, working for Aussie estates like Yangarra, Hentley Farm, and Hickinbotham in the years before Bondar became a reality.

The Awards

• JAMES HALLIDAY’S BEST NEW WINERY 2017
• TOP 50 YOUNG GUN OF WINE 2018, 2020
• TOP 50 VINEYARDS OF AUSTRALIA, RAYNER VINEYARD 2021
  

2022 Pétillant Naturel

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2021 Chardonnay

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2022 Nero

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2021 Violet Hour Shiraz

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2021 Rayner Vineyard Shiraz

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AB CSPC/SKU # 885974

2022 Pétillant Naturel

McLaren Vale GI

A juicy rendition of old vine grenache and cinsault fermented in bottle (all the way dry). The bubbles lift up a jazzy red aroma suggestively in tune with the wine’s sunset hue. This pét-nat does everything you hope a pét-nat will do — it’s crunchy, dry and delicious, and will disappear quickly on a summer’s day. All the red berries are represented along with tangy citrus and plenty of pep and concentration. But make no mistake, this is a proper glass of bubbles, a delicious aperitif sure but just as well suited to your finest stemware.

• Varietal/Blend: Grenache & Cinsault
• Fermentation: Fermented in bottle.
• Ageing: Aged in bottle.
• Vineyard & Vine Age: Estate vineyards. Hand picked. Organic conversion.
• ABV: 12.5%

AB CSPC/SKU # 885977

2021 Chardonnay

Adelaide Hills GI

A single vineyard Chardonnay from Echunga in Adelaide Hills, hand-picked and lightly pressed straight to french oak (25% new) sans sulphur for a natural ferment and ten months ageing. On the nose, brightly herbaceous like fresh picked dill with a touch of match stick opening into apple pie, peach cobbler, peanut brittle, and custard. It leaps onto the palate with terrific concentration, fleet footed acidity pleasingly bridled by MLF without becoming a butter bomb. A broad creamy mouthfeel. Just outstanding. Balanced, delicious, difficult-to-put-down Chard. The long, happy finish gives notes of dried pineapple and a dab of salty browned butter.
95 points Halliday Wine Companion 2022: “Wild-yeast fermentation in (25% new) barrels, spontaneous malolactic and lees work, sans stirring in lieu of the low-yielding hot year. While I find the array of Mediterranean varieties at this estate compelling, this is exceptional chardonnay from the Hills. Riveting! A core of nougat, cashew, vanilla pod and oatmeal cream, with rims of mineral pungency and a frame flecked by stone-fruit references, sweet and savoury/sour. A thrilling tussle between extract, energy and structural binds." - Ned Goodwin MW.
“All the cashew and almond, white flowers and vanilla, stone fruit and nashi pear, a subtle mint coolness. It's glossy, layered, complex, but shot through with tight ripe lime acidity, and finishes savoury and creamy. A wonderful expression of Chardonnay here. All just so.” - 94pts Gary Walsh, The Wine Front.

• Varietal/Blend: 100% Chardonnay
• Fermentation: Lightly pressed directly to french oak (25% new). Natural ferment with indigenous yeast. No added sulfites until bottling.
• Ageing: 10 months in French oak barriques on the lees (no stirring). Natural MLF. Bottled with a small addition of sulfites.
• Vineyard & Vine Age: Single vineyard in Echunga (Adelaide Hills). Hand picked.
• ABV: 12.5%

AB CSPC/SKU # 885976

2022 Nero

McLaren Vale GI

Andre & Selina’s 100% Nero d’Avola is a testament to the incredible success Italian varieties are finding in South Australia. Farmed on the rocky clays of the Willunga foothills sub-region, hand-picked, whole bunch fermented, then aged in ceramic eggs, this wine is bottled early for freshness and purity. It’s a neon bright expression smelling of generous red fruit and Dr. Pepper spice, giving over to a scrumptious palate of cherry coke juiciness and a tannic complexion so sensational, so uniquely pleasing it was almost vexing. The profile of the wines finish is simple—cherry, cherry, and more cherry!—but wonderful and long. This wine is deeply endearing and winsome, a real Vino al Vino.

• Varietal/Blend: 100% Nero d'Avola
• Fermentation: Whole bunch fermented, indigenous yeast.
• Ageing: Aged in ceramic eggs.
• Vineyard & Vine Age: A high elevation rocky clay vineyard in Willunga (McLaren Vale). Hand picked.
• ABV: 13.8%

AB CSPC/SKU # 885975

2021 Violet Hour Shiraz

McLaren Vale GI

This is the new Aussie Shiraz, a wine hailed as such by so many, a wine you can’t put down. The Rayner Vineyard’s old vine Shiraz (dating back to 1947) gives its fresher expression in the ‘Violet Hour’ cuvée by using whole-bunch fermentation, gentler cap management, and an extended time on the skins. These crucial choices create an ethereal lift on the nose, a multi-dimensional hue of fresh fruit flavours, and a silken texture on the palate. Organoleptic: Before this even reaches my nose, wow, this eye-widening density of blue fruit with a side-chained harmony of macerated violet florals, reminiscent of Creme Yvette. On the palate a more anisette-like profile with spicy blueberry and a twist of just-cracked peppercorn. The acid here is just right too, perhaps its most alluring feature, neither over-asserted for a new-school natty style nor floundering with that Aussie flabbiness of the early aughts, it is just right, pulling the wine into textbook balance, allowing for an opulent, open, lush shiraz; a shiraz that is big without being boisterous; a shiraz that oak has helped elaborate without imposing oak’s spice; a shiraz that will convince the most ardent Aussie skeptic while delighting the most seasoned Aussie addict (like James Halliday — he’s given Violet Hour 97 points three of the last four years and twice named it in his excellent Top 100 Aussie Wines list, 2019 and 2021). Violet Hour should improve with grace over the next five years to ten years but is also excellent out the gate.

• Varietal/Blend: 100% Shiraz (Syrah)
• Fermentation: 100% whole cluster fermentation with six weeks on the skins and minimal cap management. Indigenous yeast.
• Ageing: Neutral French oak barriques.
• Vineyard & Vine Age: Fruit from Shiraz vines up to 70 years old, planted on our Rayner Vineyard on the southern edge of Blewitt Springs in McLaren Vale. Hand picked. In organic conversion.
• ABV: 14.0%

AB CSPC/SKU # 885979

2021 Rayner Vineyard Shiraz

McLaren Vale GI

In their eponymous Rayner Vineyard cuvée, Shiraz meets Syrah, so to speak. The deep, sandy Aussie soils and their 70+ year old own-rooted vines meet the deft techniques of a lifetime of learning in Australia and the Rhône alike. Bondar’s steady hand comes to life here. In the inclusion of whole bunches in his ferment we see the influence of his time with Alain Graillot in the Rhône (and Graillot’s own experience adapting the lessons of Domaine Dujac’s Jacques Seysses). The resulting wine is remarkable, earning praise and agreement from the new-schoolers and traditionalists alike. As Andre Bondar explains it, they use Shiraz from the two oldest blocks in Rayner Vineyard to build this wine; the 1947 block on dry-grown, deep sandy soils with ironstone rocks gives this wine its wonderful fragrance and elegant fruit; the 1950 planted section is planted in a shallow clay on limestone base and this gives the wine its bones, an age worthy skeleton to carry the wine for many years in cellar. This is a limited release, named in the top 100 wines of Australia 2022 and earning 97 points from James Halliday and 96 from Ned Goodwin MW, both of whose beautiful tasting notes are included below.
“Deep, brooding crimson-purple. This is a reproduction of variety and place of the highest quality. It’s velvet in the mouth, and mines all the black fruits, dark chocolate, liquorice and spice hoped for. The tannins are polished, the oak absorbed by the fruit.” – JH
"While I am optimistic about grenache in these parts, I often find the style of shiraz monochromatic. Not in these hands. Despite the heat spikes of a warm year, the sandy blocks across the vineyard thrived. A cool finish to the season, providing perk. All things done right: picking window, use of whole bunches (20%) and a long extraction. Mostly older wood. A textural tour de force. Violet, blueberry, nori, peppery acidity and a licorella tannin line so fine that it could be threaded through the eye of a needle. A beautiful wine." — NG

• Varietal/Blend: 100% Shiraz (Syrah)
• Fermentation: 20% whole cluster fermentation. Indigenous yeast. Long skin contact.
• Ageing: French oak barriques. Mostly older.
• Vineyard & Vine Age: Fruit from the two oldest Shiraz parcels in the Rayner Vineyard, the 1947 block on dry-grown, deep sandy soils with ironstone, the 1950-planted section on a shallow clay on limestone base. Hand picked. In organic conversion.
• ABV: 14.0%