SPIRITED WINEMAKERS

‘I wanted my gin to smell like the national park after rain – I wanted it to taste like Australia’
Rory Lane

Grappa, marc, orujo: where you have wine, spirits often follow. For centuries, winemakers keen to minimise waste and make cash have turned the natural by-product of the winemaking industry, pomace – leftover grape skins, pulp and stems – into something palatable and profitable. It’s been part tradition, part financial necessity; after all, spirits aren’t impacted by the environmental uncertainties of harvest quite like wines can be. Even the acclaimed Piedmont producer Gaja makes Grappa di Barbaresco from its Nebbiolo grapes.

But things are changing. Where once