Some Young Punks

Colin McBryde is not your conventional image of a man with a PhD. His shaved head and full body tattoos are a long way from the conventional lab geek. But when you realize that Some Young Punks, is all about a punk attitude to winemaking, it all starts to make sense. Along with partner Jen Gardner and her family, who own Adelina in the Clare Valley, add Nic Bourke and creative pop art packaging, you have Some Young Punks. Seriously good booze with seriously good attitude!


"We wanted to do something that had been done before, to make exceptional wine with small estate charm. The ethos is simple, self centered, and just a little arrogant - We make charismatic wines that are true to what we think ‘wine’ should be about. If someone doesn’t like the way we do it then they had better put the bottle down because there’s already not enough to go around. It is okay to judge a book by it’s cover; we judged the covers of books to decide on these labels. These labels are as bright and bold as the wines they clothe. Fresh Classics printed in glorious Punknicolor. The wines almost made themselves. The best fruit always does. But even the best fruit won’t jump into a crusher by itself so we help out a little in that respect. This beautiful tradeoff left us plenty of time to talk and drink and then talk some more. And when it was time we bottled it. Presto." - Punks
"The Suspects: In the case of Jen Gardner we have a straight-A student, with a PhD and a long line of important publications led astray by a love of The Wild Wine. A sad case of a good kid mixed up with the wrong type of wine, now she rarely even inoculates her ferments, preferring instead to let them run wild as she now does.
Colin McBryde was always a troublemaker, fleeing wineries in New Zealand and the Americas, he now operates out of Australia’s Clare Valley. He is truly an incorrigible winemaker, understood only by the yeast that helped him nab his PhD from Adelaide University.
Nic Bourke does whatever it takes to make the best wine. Those that stand in his way soon learn that winemaking is serious work except when it isn’t. McLaren Vale plays host to his hijinx but one region is never enough, and no variety is too big to be brought back down to size by a big enough crusher. Approach all three with caution - especially if they are anywhere near a bottle of wine. An opinion is only worth something when strongly held and these people have a helluva grip." - Punks

Monsters, Monsters Attack! Riesling

Monsters Attack is from two vineyard blocks in the Clare Valley. One in the south of Clare with limestone and chalk soils, the second in the north offering 65-70 year old vine fruit. The grapes are whole bunch pressed with the pressings and the free run kept separate. Fermentation is done at a low temperature with indigenous yeasts and then fermented in seasoned oak. 988 cases produced.

Reviews:
Price:
 
Naked by Punks

The entire world’s evolution in 2020 coincided with Colin & Jen having a lot of time to think about the direction of SYP.  They had wavered at times of being committed to it or putting more energy into other projects, namely the family estate of Adelina.  Fortunately for all Punks fans they used the ‘quiet time’ of 2020 to capture new energy and gave Punks a facelift.  ‘Naked’ remains a Shiraz & Mataró (AKA Mourvèdre) blend and again from McLaren Vale.  The label captures the honest and stripped down personality of the wine.  The Shiraz component comes from the same clay-rich vineyard as ‘Passion’.  The Mataró from light, free-draining loamy soils in McLaren Flat.  Think of the new face of Punks as forbidden fruit of sorts.

The Shiraz and Mataró were primarily machine-harvested with a few older vine sites being hand-picked.  The fruit was fully destemmed and lightly crushed then sent to open-top stainless-steel tanks.  Fermentation occurred separately in tank using Col & Jen’s affinity for yeast, specifically a selected strain that achieved the ideal vision of clean fermentation.  After 10-16 days on skins the lot was pressed, with only the free run juice being used, directly to roughly two-thirds stainless-steel and one-third neutral French barriques for aging.  A small addition of sulfur was added as the wines were first laid to rest and then after ten months the wine was racked and blended to tank to settle naturally.  The wine was bottled without fining or filtration and just another small sulfur addition.

Reviews:
Price:
 
Passion by Punks

The entire world’s evolution in 2020 coincided with Colin & Jen having a lot of time to think about the direction of SYP.  They had wavered at times of being committed to it or putting more energy into other projects, namely the family estate of Adelina.  Fortunately for all Punks fans they used the ‘quiet time’ of 2020 to capture new energy and gave Punks a facelift.  ‘Passion’ remains a Shiraz & Cabernet Sauvignon blend and now entirely from the Vale.  The label epitomizes the mind and soul that Col & Jen have put into this project for over 15 years now!  The Shiraz component primarily comes from the same clay-rich vineyard as ‘Naked’ near Kangarilla, which the Cabernet Sauvignon is from a bit more dense loamy soils near McLaren Flat.

The Shiraz and Cabernet were primarily machine-harvested with a few older vine sites being hand-picked.  The fruit was fully destemmed and lightly crushed then sent to open-top stainless-steel tanks.  Fermentation occurred separately in tank using Col & Jen’s affinity for yeast, specifically a selected strain that achieved the ideal vision of clean fermentation.  After 7-10 days on skins the lot was pressed, with only the free run juice being used, directly to roughly 60% stainless-steel and 40% neutral French barriques for aging.  A small addition of sulfur was added as the wines were first laid to rest and then after ten months the wine was racked and blended to tank to settle naturally.  The wine was bottled without fining or filtration and just another small sulfur addition.

Reviews:
Price:
 
Squid Fist

The eclectic (yet very on-brand) name came from a blending session in the mid 2000s. Conversation digressed from the Simpsons episode with the sea-faring captain on to a giant squid being washed up on a beach in Japan. That morphed into the Trixi and Tessa trilogy and they commissioned Asaf Hanuka, a well-known Israeli illustrator, to sketch their ramblings. The wine is meant to be fun, made simply to retain freshness and appeal with obvious characters shown from both varieties.

The grapes were harvested from 20-year-old vineyards and brought into the cellar to co-ferment after yeast inoculation in concrete vessels for 10 days. The wine then moved to a mix of stainless-steel tanks and neutral oak barrels for 10 months of aging. The wine was bottled without fining or filtering and just a small dosage of sulfur.

Reviews:
Price: