Little Reddie

Pat Underwood first made wine in ’12 with shiraz grapes he’d picked from Jarad Curwood’s (Chapter Wine) vineyard. He fermented them in a barrel in his dad’s backyard and called the wine Little Reddie, a nod to both the barrel’s size and the redfin perch he’d catch in the local lakes and rivers. Like the fish, Pat was hooked. Over the next few years, Pat built on his wine knowledge through work at Melbourne’s City Wine Shop, vintages at Bannockburn and Gembrook Hill, and extensive travel through key European wine regions, culminating in three consecutive harvests with Olek Bondonio in Barbaresco from ’16 to ’18. In ’15, he began to focus on Little Reddie in earnest. The range includes pure and expressive varietal wines alongside fun and juicy blends. Fruit is sourced from sound growers within Central Victoria – Pat’s only non-negotiable – and the wines are generally designed to drink young. -ANNA WEBSTER