NEWS

October is Pinocchio Month!

Create your own story with Pinocchio wines.

This October is Pinocchio month at Crittenden where you can take time in the sunshine to sit back with an antipasto platter, a glass of Pinocchio or an Aperol Spritz featuring Pinocchio Prosecco.

Pinocchio Aperitivo is available every Friday afternoon at the Crittenden Wine Centre throughout October from 3.30pm to 7pm, to celebrate extended daylight hours and our love of Italian wine varieties.

There is also a chance to win a year’s worth of Pinocchio wines with any purchase of Pinocchio from selected retailers in South East Victoria.

Our fresh new-look Pinocchio wines were crafted by seasoned winemaker, Rollo Crittenden and are inspired by a colourful Italian way of life.

Best enjoyed with friends, family, good storytellling and a taste of Italian cuisine - we invite you to think about enjoying a glass on a sunny afternoon with antipasti, fresh seafood and simple yet flavourful appetisers.

Pinocchio is a much loved wine brand on the Mornington Peninsula because of their fresh and effortless style. 

Our five Pinocchio wines are perfect for an outdoor lifestyle and those treasured moments Australians enjoy entertaining with easy food and summer flavours.

First created by the Geppetto of our family, Garry Crittenden nearly 20 years ago, siblings Rollo and Zoe Crittenden have breathed new life into this much-loved range of wines with new-look labels exploring elements of the Pinocchio story across each wine.

The Moscato features the whale where Pinocchio and Geppetto reunite, the Blue Fairy brings a little magic to the Prosecco and the Pinot Grigio invites us to think of the sea.  

The Rosato tells the story of the cunning encounter of Pinocchio with the fox and the cat, while the Sangiovese reminds us of Pinocchio’s journey to the Land of Toys and his unfortunate transformation.

The new labels created by local Mornington Peninsula designer, Bek Thompson of Luui Design, bring a sense of fun and artistry to the Pinocchio range.

If you would like to join us for Pinocchio Aperitivo at Crittenden any Friday this October, be sure to book here.

We hope you also get to share these wines with a touch of sunshine, great people and your favourite Italian food flavours. Happy drinking!

20/09/2023 at 2:25 PM Permalink

Easy Entertaining with Pinocchio

Crack open a Pinocchio Pinot Grigio next time you have friends over for dinner & serve up this tasty Caprese Salad.

Course: Appetizer, Salad
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Caprese Salad, Caprese Salad Recipe, Insalata Caprese
Servings: 4 servings
Author: Lisa Bryan 

Ingredients

3 large tomatoes sliced
8 ounces mozzarella sliced
handful of fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic reduction
flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Methodology

1. Prep the tomato and cheese. Add a slice of tomato to a plate, then add a slice of mozzarella on top. Keep alternating slices of tomato and mozzarella until you've used up all of the ingredients.

2. Add the basil. Place fresh basil leaves in between the layers. I prefer smaller basil leaves to keep them whole, but if you have large basil leaves you can cut them up.

3. Finishing touches. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic reduction on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then serve immediately.

20/09/2023 at 2:14 PM Permalink

Crittenden Wins the Dr Alan Antcliff Award

Crittenden Vineyard is the winner of this year's Dr Alan Antcliff Award for a commitment to environmental excellence.

In only its second iteration, Crittenden won Mornington Peninsula Wine's Dr Allan Antcliff Award due to our work to recover the soil health and vitality of our grapevines with a rigorous program of composting, undervine plantings and mulching and our vision to be a sustainably thriving wine business into the future.

The judging panel included three highly esteemed viticulturists, Dr Samantha Scarratt, Mark Walpole and John Whiting, who assessed all applications, visited each vineyard and narrowed the extensive list of applicants down to three finalists: Crittenden, Quealy Winemakers and Portsea Estate.

Rollo said going through the submission process was highly beneficial.

"It gave us the opportunity to pause and reflect on every aspect of our viticultural process. The interaction with the three judges, given their wealth of collective experience, has brought great value to our business, and resulted in further consideration and evolution of our processes,” Rollo said.

“To be recognised through the Dr Allan Antcliff award was unexpected but very much appreciated and we look forward to sharing our learnings to the greater benefit of all Mornington Peninsula grape growers." 

As part of the award, Crittenden receives a travel bursary to extend the knowledge and expertise of sustainable winegrowing with the intent to share the findings with the region's grapegrowing community.

Dr Scaratt, who led the judging process said the panel was impressed by Crittenden's approach to soil ecology through extensive compost research and development and to provide the balance and biodiversity necessary for a thriving ecosystem. 

“What set Crittenden apart in a very close competition, was its extensive research into, and application of, different practices in the vineyard. It is something the team there have been doing for quite a while now with excellent results,” she said.

We have been doing this work since the early 2000s, and over time we have learned to focus on the bacteria and fungi present in compost to support the health in the soil and root systems putting nutrients back into soil that is depleted during the growing and ripening phase.

The Dr Allan Antcliff Viticulture Award is an initiative of Mornington Peninsula Wine and the Myer family, who led by the late Bails Myer, have expressed a long-term commitment to grape growing and winemaking on the Mornington Peninsula since the 1970s.

The Crittenden family is extremely grateful to the judges, Mornington Peninsula Wine and the Myer family for this esteemed industry award.

29/08/2023 at 8:55 AM Permalink

Courage to Create Cri de Coeur

"Wine is like life," wrote Ned Goodwin MW - reviewer and wine writer for the James Suckling Wine Ratings website.

"One fossicks through the drudgery to get to the beauty and when it appears... it demands a yelp of thanks. So it is, when this triumvirate arrives from Crittenden Wines."

Ned goes on to say online:
"Very few producers had the courage and flight of fancy to think long term and outside of the box.

Rollo Crittenden, the winemaker at Crittenden Estate in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, was an exception.

His assistant winemaker, Matt Campbell, had experienced Vin Jaune on a trip to the Jura years before. In 2011, he decided to take a barrel of his misbegotten savagnin and leave it untopped and unsulfured.

Intuitively, the flor surface yeast, or “voile” (veil) as it is known in the Jura, began to cover the wine.

This facilitated a biological aging process under the aegis of the yeast, prompting kaleidoscopic complexities of cheese cloth, curry powder, salted nuts, camomile and aldehydes, not dissimilar to Japanese radish, that the Crittrenden Cri de Coeur Savagnin has become known for.

Crittenden calls the genesis of the Cri de Coeur “one of the greatest mistakes that has ever happened to us.” Tasting the 2018, I couldn’t agree more. The wine is invariably brilliant, although the 2018 feels weightier and more viscous, perhaps, than years past. It should age very well over the course of a decade to 15 years.

Crittenden also crafts a Macvin, currently the forth iteration, or #4 as it is labeled.

This is a gently fortified style that also draws on the heritage of the Jura. The wine is crafted with savagnin that is aged for four years under flor before being sweetened with savagnin juice and fortified to 17 percent. It boasts a similar flavor profile to the Cri de Coeur with an additional hint of brulee.

You can read more about what Ned has to say here www.jamessuckling.com/wine-tasting-reports

22/08/2023 at 9:59 AM Permalink

Halliday Wine Companion Awards 2024

For the second year in a row, the Cri de Coeur Savagnin Sous Voile has won a gold medal and received the high score of 97 points by the Halliday Wine Companion 2024 Awards.

The Halliday Wine Companion 2024 was released in August 2023 and we were thrilled to learn we had retained our Red Five Star Winery Rating and achieved six gold medal scores.

Here are the highlight reviews from the Halliday Wine Companion 2024. 

2018 Cri de Coeur Savagnin Sous Voile - 97 points, GOLD

Seriously, Rollo Crittenden and Matt Campbell. What are you two winemakers doing? Not much it seems, as you left this wine in old barrels without touching them basically: no top-up, admittedly under a flor for its four years of life, then unfined, unfiltered to bottle. Easy winemaking, eh? OK, I know that’s not true at all because this vin jaune style is very, very difficult to make. To date, this shows amazing poached quinces, ripe yellow peach with lemon zest and preserved lemons. Nutty aldehydes are embossed into the wine, the palate is alive with acidity and vitality. It’s complex and delicious and it gives me goosebumps. Yep. Perfect.

2021 Cri de Coeur Chardonnay - 95 points, GOLD

The mistake with this wine – or any chardonnay, for that matter, is to serve it too cold. That just muffles the flavours. Guilty. However, this opened up in no time allowing a full spread of stone fruit, lemon, mandarin, ginger fluff cake and clotted cream. The oak is neatly embedded into the body, adding some depth and spicy nuances, and the superfine acidity drives this to a Formula 1 finish.

2021 Cri de Coeur Pinot Noir - 95 points, GOLD

The cooler season seems to suit Cri de Coeur as of all the pinots, this has the deepest colour; a vibrant garnet, and has amalgamated the best at this early stage. Fragrant with florals and autumn leaves after rain with flavours of morello and sweet red cherries, tamarind and turmeric, pepper and aniseed melding into the medium-bodied palate. The raw silk tannins have some sway and are just coming into unison, with the acidity allowing a lingering finish.

Cri de Coeur Macvin #4 - 95 points, GOLD

The fourth incarnation of this excellent wine was made by siphoning off some 2018 savagnin under flor, adding sweet ‘22 savagnin juice then fortifying the blend. Lovely golden amber glint to the colour; full of honeycomb and quince paste, grilled nuts and seaweed with moreish aldehydes and wafts of antique furniture fragrance. The palate is clean and lively with the acidity curtailing the sweetness and evening the palate. The golden fruit flavour is very much at the forefront, making this absurdly fresh.

2021 The Zumma Chardonnay - 95 points, GOLD

It’s always enjoyable to taste the Crittenden range of chardonnays and once at the Zumma end, the top tier being Cri de Coeur, it’s not so much about being better but highlighting differences. Smoky, flinty and a little funky with lots of citrus and stone fruit dressed up with spices and cedar oak. There’s an evenness across the palate with plenty of mouth-watering acidity. Really delicious.

2022 Peninsula Pinot Gris - 95 points, GOLD

Anyone who claims not to like pinot gris obviously hasn't tried this – it will convert naysayers because it’s really, really good. Delicious actually. You’ll love it. Trust me. It’s full of nashi pear and ginger spice, baked apples and lemon zest with a touch of clotted cream. Not sweet, this is textural and rich yet the finish lingers and is left revitalised thanks to tangy acidity.

You can review the full list of wines online or purchase these wines here. 

07/08/2023 at 11:35 AM Permalink