Alex Byrne is a young gun of the wine industry and is now really hitting his straps with wines made from various vineyards across Victoria. This 2016 Sunbury Chardonnay comes from a vineyard that is over 25 years old and delivers the richness of fruit with cleanly defined acidity and freshness. This is a wine to get excited about, combining subtle white peach flavours with plenty of fresh lemon and grapefruit, a touch of toasted almond and a really lovely creamy texture. There's plenty of rich honeycomb and lemon curd on the nose, but the palate really freshens up - some spice and zip on the finish, all adding up to a perfectly balanced, elegant Chardonnay. Great stuff.

Byrne Wines is the brainchild of Alex Byrne, one of Australia’s most promising young winemakers, whose passion for capturing everything that makes each varietal he works with special has garnered him plenty of attention and many, many fans over the past few years. Alex started out in the wine industry at the tender age of 17 - he was a horticulture student looking for some part-time work, and ended up working at the prestigious Taltarni vineyards for Dominique Portet. He may only have been doing bits and pieces of donkey work, but he was totally inspired by the world he’d dipped his toes into… and it wasn’t long before he figured out exactly what he wanted to do with his life. The next stop on his winemaker’s journey was a stint working with vintages in Margaret River, then a summer shadowing grape growers and vignerons in Northern Rhone. Constantly learning, constantly honing his ideas, and constantly dreaming big, by 2013 he was ready to start bottling his own wines and experimenting with his own grapes. The first winery opened by Alex wasn’t Byrne wines, but rather Liquid Rock n Roll - an operation which picked up a bit of a cult following in certain circles. Loud, brash, experimental and fun, it was the perfect stepping stone from which to test the market and further sharpen his craft. In 2016, however, Alex decided it was time to change location, rebrand, and start taking things a bit more seriously… and that’s how Byrne Wines was born. Working with cool climate vineyards around Melbourne (where he eventually settled) allowed Alex to really show off his skills, and explore how the natural fruit flavours of the grapes he was sourcing would manifest in the bottle. Since re-launching under his own name, Byrne Wines has grown from strength to strength, and continues to make the most of the talents of its bold and innovative founder. We’re excited to see what he comes up with next!