From the pristine Alpine Valleys in North East Victoria, two winemakers – Eleana Anderson of Mayford Wines and Jo Marsh of Billy Button Wines – offer up a collaboration.
The Anderson & Marsh wine project has its roots in friendship, a love of mountains and Champagne.
“With each release, these 2 talented winemakers work hard to unravel the Spanish grape’s great mystery, not to mention suitability to our soils.” Jeni Port, Halliday Wine Companion 2023
From the moment Jo Marsh moved to Porepunkah after an eight-year stint with Seppelts, Eleana Anderson, of Mayford Wines, was on her like a rash. Delighted to have a new winemaker buddy across the road, and one rich in big company expertise, she pumped her for information.
In exchange she drew Jo into the small, friendly wine growing community of the Alpine Valleys.
They drank Champagne together, helped each other, shared winemaking equipment, cooked delicious food and had a lot of fun.
In the early part of 2014, the pair resolved to co-produce a serious sparkling wine with fruit grown in Porepunkah, the cool, southern heart of the Alpine Valleys in north east Victoria that they call home. Since the 1980s, this mountain-fringed system of valleys has produced top grade sparkling fruit for premium wine brands, mostly interstate. Along with Tasmania, it has been a go-to region for cool and elegant blend components for some high-end bubbles but has rarely produced stand-alone regional sparkling wines.
An elegant wine, complex from bottle fermentation, creamy from extended lees aging, bone dry and nerved with racy acid line was what they had in mind. Weeks later they set forth with snips in hand to harvest the first grapes, Chardonnay from their beautiful mountain home at the base of Mt Buffalo. Made in tiny volumes, the Anderson & Marsh ‘Catani’ Blanc de Blancs was born.
In the long five and a half year wait for the ‘Catani‘ bottle maturation, a parcel of local Albariño became available. This aromatic and textural Iberian variety is a natural fit viticulturally to the Alpine Valleys, as is its red cousin Tempranillo with which the duo had proven track records. It was too good an opportunity to pass up but wasn’t a neat fit into their individual wine brands, (Mayford and Billy Button) so ‘Parell” was born – a Galician term for pair (referring to the pair of winemakers and also the pair of Spanish varieties in the range) – and so both Tempranillo and Albariño were added to the range.
Anderson & Marsh plays to the viticultural strengths of the Alpine Valleys with a tight focus on just three wines. It is a collaboration that is rooted in friendship, shared passion and above all, fun.