2025 Stefano Lubiana Primavera Pinot Noir $50
In the late 1980s, Steve and Monique Lubiana travelled almost 10,000km in search of an ideal place to grow grapes and make cool-climate wine. They considered parts of Western Australia, South Australia and southern Victoria, but really wanted a site where traditional method sparkling wine could find a new home in Australia.
They eventually found Granton on the River Derwent. Around 20km upstream from Hobart, the location seemed most likely to meet their exhaustive checklist of essential vineyard terroir and growing conditions.
You need topnotch Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to produce world-class sparkling. Thirty years on, the Lubianas' sunny, north-facing, biodynamically-managed site is delivering the goods.
The couple's Primavera range was conceived as a drink-now, pigeon pair of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines that could provide essential cashflow while their carefully crafted sparkling wines enjoyed a nice long sleep in the cellar.
The truth is these wines have their own distinctive house style that makes them tremendously appealing in their own right.
Early releases of Primavera Pinot Noir were invariably made with little or no oak. The 2025 is the product of an excellent vintage in these parts, and was made in a mix of French oak barriques and larger format oak. It's hardly surprising this is a very well structured Pinot, combining ripe fruit characters with food-friendly savoury notes.
The wine is no shrinking violet in appearance, and offers all manner of engaging aromatics, including hints of meaty/earthy/reductive notes that add a licorice/Fisherman Friend dimension to the red berry fruit on offer.
The palate is ripe and juicy, and flows along nicely, with good length of flavour. This is no one-trick pony. While you can certainly enjoy it now, the wine's natural verve and intensity will carry it forward into the future for at least another 5 years or so in a cool, dark place.
On-premise customers and sommeliers love these wines. It's easy to understand why. Primavera wines are not show ponies. Their target audiences are in real-world settings where good food, good times and relaxed conversation all hold sway.
Amen to that.
Source: Cellar door
Last page update: 29 August 2026