Sierra Reed’s wines are some of the most difficult I’ve ever had to write about, largely because I’ve never encountered anyone who gives so much of themselves to every bottle.
Sierra is, without doubt, a prolific and deeply authentic communicator. It’s worth taking the time to look closely at every photograph and video she shares, and to really read what she has to say. There is always something more to discover. If you want to get more from a bottle of wine than simply a good drink, Sierra’s wines should be high on your list.
I suspect Sierra herself might disagree with me on this, but I’ve come to believe that terroir, or site expression – call it what you will – begins with the person as much as the place. It is people, for better or worse, who ultimately create a sense of place through culture, tradition, evolution and innovation.
Sierra’s wines come from all over: New Zealand, Torquay, the Grampians, Barossa Valley, Beaujolais, Heathcote and Mount Alexander. Each place is distinct, and each wine expressive in its own way. And yet, across this wonderfully diverse collection, it is Sierra who gives so much of herself to their making.
For me, these wines are a reflection of her love, dedication and honesty. The sites are undoubtedly important – some of them exceptional – but through Sierra’s stewardship, they become something greater still.
One can never take Sierra Reed’s wines for granted. She approaches every vineyard as an individual, without preconceptions or a fixed methodology, allowing each site to dictate its own path. Her ‘Love’ Gamay is, fittingly, a love letter to Pierre-Marie Chermette, one of Beaujolais’ great producers and one of Sierra’s mentors. Another, Australia’s foremost viticulturist Mark Walpole, was on hand to help graft a section of her Torquay vineyard from Semillon to Gamay.
My immediate reaction was that this could be Australia’s best Gamay – or, at the very least, deserves to sit alongside those of Sorrenberg and By Farr.
There is a sense of kismet about it. Sierra’s vineyard is the first planted to Gamay on the Surf Coast, technically within the Geelong wine region, and given her experience in Beaujolais, the guidance of her mentors and the fact that this is only the second release from such a young vineyard, it feels as though the stars have somehow aligned.
Vibrant and deeply coloured, I could smell the wine being poured from across the room, such is the lift and intensity of its aromatics. This is pure love: no reticence, no hesitation, just beautiful emotion laid bare.
Floral notes mingle with English summer fruits, blackcurrant pastille and baking spice. It is a phenomenal wine of contrasts: weight and lightness, elegance and brawn, curve and precision, silkiness and tension. So many Australian Gamays seem to lean into a particular idea – whole-bunch character, Pinot-like delicacy, briskness, chillability, overt fruit – but this feels remarkably complete. Nothing is overstated; nothing feels forced.
The flavours linger for minutes, yet the wine is never forceful. Instead, it carries an effortless, sensual momentum – a wine of remarkable poise, energy and feeling.
Reed Wines ‘Frequency’ Botrytis Riesling 2025
For lovers of German Riesling, this sits firmly in the fuller-bodied, sweeter Auslese spectrum. And what an extraordinary convergence of talent and place: the Southern Hemisphere’s greatest Riesling vineyard, paired with its greatest Riesling maker, all captured in a single bottle. For me, this is history in the making – a wine of such remarkable quality that it feels destined to be remembered.
There is no holding back the fruit: dried and green mango, pineapple and kiwifruit, layered with ginger, gardenia and white peach. Rich, silky and luscious, the initial impression is undoubtedly sweet, but the wine quickly gathers momentum, revealing orange peel, grapefruit, lime, custard and even a hint of dark cherry.
Counterintuitively, the finish is remarkably dry, with a subtle grip of structural phenolics providing shape and definition. It is still very early days, but the length, balance and interplay of sweetness and acidity, combined with the reassuring presence of screwcap, point to decades of ageing potential. For me, this is already one of the great Rieslings of the Southern Hemisphere.
