It started with a discussion in the summer of 2015, Mum, Dad, Paul and I were on a family holiday in Melbourne and the topic was, “where should Renzaglia Wines go from here? Should Mum and Dad expand the business in the future or should they think about how they could retire without having committed themselves too deeply in this venture.”
That proposition led to my decision that it was time that I move back to Bathurst during my last year of my Business degree at university and start working alongside Dad at Renzaglia Wines.
In the early years, there were many conflicts between father and son as I tried to impose my often romantic or naïve ideas of how things should be done upon Dad’s long held practices and ideas.
Dad and I were very fortunate to be able to call upon Mum’s special mediation superpowers to help us to hear each other out and de-escalate in desperate situations. I’m proud to say that those kinds of conflicts don’t take place very often anymore.
For some time, we had been looking for an avenue for my incessant ideation. There has always been a strong desire within me to have creative freedom. I explored this desire for freedom in some contract wine making for a couple of different Sydney outfits in 2017 and 2018.
Plans to make wine under a label of my own in 2019 were difficult due to availability of fruit – thankfully we got a few wines out. Then, of course, the drought and smoke of 2020 happened, and we managed to produce a few wines despite the odds stacking up against us. Eventually, di Renzo was born in the Winter of 2020.
My vision for the di Renzo range is defined by fruit purchased from local growers and a minimalistic wine maker imprint. All ferments take place spontaneously, filtration is performed only when necessary, no new oak is used, lighter body and lower alcohol in the finished wines.
These will all be characteristics of the di Renzo wines moving forward whilst still delivering quality and value through the range so that people who enjoy drinking our wines can do so on any occasion and still experience something unique and enjoyable.
All that being said – the motif of this piece is that of acknowledging journeys. The journey of my wine making philosophy becoming more grounded in the realities of running a business and being a farmer. Dad’s journey of venturing into and trusting more experimental winemaking in the pursuit of improving the quality of our wines and the challenge of handing over some of the control.
When applying risk management and the cautious mindset that is typical of many new world producers to innovative wine making practices, we are able to make compelling wines that should unite a table of friends instead of dividing them.
The trick from here on in is finding growers whom we respect, whose values align with ours in how they run their operations and whom we are most excited to work with into the future.
