NATURAL OBSESSION: AUSSIE WINEMAKER STEVE PANNELL’S NEBBIOLO ODDYSEY

Some things are meant to be. Australian Steve Pannell left his senior winemaking role at Hardys and started his eponymous S.C. Pannell project in time for the excellent 2004 vintage. With these first wines in the winery, he packed up his young family and a father-in-law and relocated for a 14-week study sabbatical in Barolo. Having fallen under the spell of Barolo from afar, he wanted to make great nebbiolo and he needed to learn from the masters.

He struck an arrangement with Aldo Vajra that he would help out in the cellar at G.D. Vajra in exchange for hands on experience and mentoring through the 2004 Barolo harvest. The probationary period at Vajra lasted all of a few days. “I walked in the door and Aldo said do you know anything about pinot?” recalls Pannell. “And I said sure I do, why?” It was an unexpected start.

“I need you to make it,” came Vajra’s reply. And Pannell delivered a pinot that exceeded expectations. Vajra’s next question: “What about riesling?” Pannell had run the Knappstein cellar in Clare, South Australia’s ground zero of great riesling, and this wine was well within his capability. With two good wines put to bed, Aldo Vajra took Pannell under his wing and sent him to visit different winemakers every few days while working the rest of the 2004 harvest.

“Aldo had a very good reputation,” recalled Pannell. “He sent me to talk to everybody, and I mean everybody.” With a good introduction Pannell set about understanding nebbiolo in all its guises. From traditional to modern approaches, understanding tannin behavior through vat times, oak formats and fermentation styles, he became fascinated with the idea that making great nebbiolo is really all about tannin.

“I spent a lot of time with great people, people like Beppi Rinaldi, and I developed an understanding of how you extract tannin and how you might use tannin to create and balance the richness of fruit in Australian wine,” Pannell said.

He returned to Australia before the 2005 Australian harvest and a guy called Frank Baldasso in the Adelaide Hills got in touch. Baldasso had nebbiolo planted at his Protero Vineyard in Gumeracha. He had heard that Pannell had been to Piedmont and wanted to know if he would like to make some nebbiolo. Game on. In another fortuitous twist of fate, winemaker at Serralunga’s Massolino Giovanni Agneli had come to work the 2005 harvest at Pannell’s.

It was the perfect storm and the 2005 harvest was immaculate. The warm start to the season tapered off and the ripening period was long with mild days and nights and, as far as seasons go, 2005 was almost custom-made for great nebbiolo. David Gleave of Liberty Wines in the UK came and tasted the wine from barrel later that year and asked to buy the entire production. Pannell’s foray into nebbiolo was an instant success.

The 2005 was a standout wine in my recent vertical tasting of every nebbiolo Pannell has bottled to date. The tasting spanned right the way to his outstanding and awarded 2016 vintage, with many highlights along the way. Pannell’s desire to make truly great nebbiolo had steadily grown through these vintages, as had the desire to purchase the Protero property. “You just can’t make great nebbiolo unless the vineyard is the driving factor. Nebbiolo speaks of place and it just has to be about a vineyard. You’ve got to own it,” he said.

Pannell inked the deal to purchase the Protero vineyard and brand in December 2019 and three days later the place was buried in flames and smoke with the tragic Adelaide Hills bushfires raging around it. None of the vineyard was burned, but in a cruel twist of fate he lost the entire 2020 harvest to crippling smoke taint. Undeterred, new plantings of barbera and teroldego are on the drawing board and grafting of merlot, chardonnay and pinot noir to riesling, gewurztraminer and pinot grigio is well underway.

There’s a pair of 2018 Protero nebbiolo wines about to be bottled, one with an approachable style due for release towards the end of the year, and another with a long maceration style called “Capo” that is a vineyard and clonal section for later release. “Long maceration gives you a more folded and layered wine,” Pannell says. “A more discreet but more spinal expression with a fluid, flowing style to the tannins. Wine with a strong backbone.”

He may be 15 years into his pursuit of making great nebbiolo in Australia but there’s a distinct feeling the real journey has just begun.

Enjoy the journey to date with our scores and notes of S.C. Pannell’s nebbiolo wines below.

– Nick Stock, executive editor