This March, the trio behind lo-fi labels Fin Wine and Cré Wine opened a cellar door/soon-to-be eatery in Dixons Creek. It’s owned and run by mates JonJo McEvoy, Oliver Johns and Angus Hean, who make wines, ciders and piquettes on Wurundjeri land with “minimal faffery”.
Fin is the “fun” project, says Hean — bottle labels are laser-etched without varietal names, and some don’t even contain wine. For example, piquette is a low-alcohol bubbly made from grape pressings, and there’s also a wine/cider hybrid made from apples and pears. Cré, on the other hand, is a “premium” minimal intervention wine made from Yarra Valley fruit. In fitting with their hands-off ethos, grapes are picked early and left on skins for a bit, and the wines are bottled young.
The team picked up 10 acres of Dixon’s Creek land (where the cellar door is) in 2021 with a little help from Hean’s parents, who they lease the site from. “Mum and dad wanted a beach house, but we needed a winery,” he jokes. In addition to biodynamically farming 7 acres of vineyard, planted with chardonnay, riesling, merlot and a splash of savagnin and petit verdot, the trio are on a mission plant more indigenous trees and shrubs in the hopes of boosting biodiversity. There was an English-style garden on the property when they moved in, Hean says, but it had to go. It was ugly and using up too much water.
The cellar door is not a conventional one, Hean says of the log cabin that’s now an open kitchen/bar type situation. There’s a tasting area up back, a big wall of wine and a few tables, with much of the seating outside (smart). “We didn’t want to make it feel like just standing behind a bar pouring wines — we want people to come and hang out with us,’ says Hean.
Given that the cellar door opened in the middle of harvest (aka, grape picking and winemaking time) the kitchen part will come later. “It’s probably not going to be a restaurant,” says Hean. He’s thinking more Stuff on Toast — like pickled anchovies and mussels, and less of the usual boring cheese plates. For now, there’s a range of bottles open for tasting each weekend and three keen-bean young winemakers looking for some company.
