Pat Underwood has long been on our radar... Firstly as that incredibly jovial sommelier at Melbourne’s City Wine Shop (the guys to ask what one should drink), and now as the still-incredibly-jovial winemaker of Little Reddie. Pat runs his negociant winemaking project out of Colbinabbin and Leanganook, Victoria. He also co-founded the Boomtown Co-op, an urban-style country winery in Castlemaine, known for its gorgeous vin de soif. His first vintage was 2015.

The strength in this tiny label is the talent and exuberance of Pat himself: he's dedicated to uncovering unique vineyards in Central Victoria. Some of his most exciting discoveries include mountain-side Chardonnay, obscure plantings of indigenous Venetian varieties and deep red, iron-rich sites planted to beautifully blood-and-mineral Nebbiolo. His relationships with his growers are strong; they share ethics and values on the land and in the cellar.

Pat’s wines are made with passionate intuition and minimal intervention across the board—not necessarily with the aim of producing 'low fi' wine he says, but to give a truer representation of the season and terroir.

Due to the negotiant nature of the Little Reddie operation, the wines available change as frequently as the places from which they derive. There are some mainstays, like his Nebbiolo Refosco, the luscious “Super Juice”, and Chardonnay from the granite slopes of Leanganook.

The Patrick Underwood label represents the top-tier, single-site range. Since he started making wine in 2012, Pat has gleaned intimate knowledge of Central Victorian vineyards and embarked on an accelerated learning journey—he’s made 40-odd renditions of Nebbiolo alone in the past decade—never losing sight of a single, specific question: What does good look like to me? “At the end of the day, if you're going to produce a wine and put your name on it, you need to be very clear and honest about what you think is good,” he told us. “And that was the linchpin of the whole thing: going, ‘OK, cool. I'm really clear. This is my belief.’”

Pat Underwood has picked the eyes out of his vineyard sources and poured all his instinct, judgment and skill into this eponymous range. “They're moving in a really good direction, but it's not about mimicking anybody in the old world,” he says. "I like wines where the terroir shows strongly. I prefer a style of extracted but clean, delicately broken down, long, dry wine.” We’re thrilled to see Pat lay down this marker. These are delicious wines of class, conviction and character, and they deserve their place in Australia's finest restaurants, bars and wine stores.