production

IT is 95 years since young Giovanni Patritti boarded a ship in Genoa, Italy, bound for an unknown future in Australia.
Today, the wine brand that bears his name has just opened a new tasting room and events space in suburban Adelaide.
Rather than travelling to meet his sister in the US, the 25-year-old set out on a journey that took him to the other end of the world and a new life in Adelaide. Seeing potential in the land around the Marion district to establish the kind of vineyard he knew from home, within a few years he and his best friend Cristano (Jimmy) Bissacca had built a winery and produced their first vintage – the start of a family business that endures.
A century on, the business remains in the hands of Giovanni’s four children and continues to operate as a fully functioning winery tucked away in the quiet streets of Dover Gardens, only 20 minutes south of the Adelaide CBD.
Over the past 12 months, Patritti has been transforming one of Giovanni’s original wine cellars – Cellar II – into a bar and tasting room. Cellar II was once a fermentation cellar and still functions as a working cellar, complete with nine huge American oak vats maturing fortified wines.
The adjacent outside area has been transformed into a spectacular “wine garden” where visitors can enjoy a glass of wine with an authentic Italian-style antipasto platter. See www.patritti.com.au/experience.
Coinciding with the opening of Cellar II is the release of five unique wines made from fruit grown in the historic urban vineyards of Marion.
These inventions of winemaker Ben Heide include the 2021 Warriparinga Vineyard Palomino Pedro Ximenez blend, a 2021 April Red Grenache Palomino blend, and the Marion Vineyard Minimum 12-Year-Old Grenache Tawny B001.
All the fruit for these wines is grown within 3km of the 1926-built winery.