Halliday's 2027 Best New Winery
Decades | Coal River Vineyard, Tasmania
Brad Rogers (a founder of Stone and Wood brewery) and Steve Flamsteed (the winemaker / manager who put Giant Steps on the map) became friends at Roseworthy Ag. College whilst studying wine. I don’t know Brad, but what he and his buddies did at Stone and Wood is phenomenal. I do know “Flammo,” and a more focused, expansive-thinking, hard-working vigneron is almost impossible to find (I’m not sure that there is one). I tasted this Decades’ Pinot a few weeks ago at a Pinot conference with Flammo (and I love Coal River pinots). After tasting good and great pinots all day, this looked really pure, perfumed, silky (but not a light weight) fresh, crunchy, juicy, complex and long.
Brad bought this old vineyard in Coal River which he and Flammo take on together, co-owning the new label.
Bravo. Try some! Cheers, Randall.
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2025 Decades Coal River Chardonnay
Offer: $79
"Our 2025 Chardonnay has a minerally structure with a real fruit purity. We wanted to explore what the site had to offer in a lovely cool year, so we kept the winemaking very simple.
The fruit was hand-picked, sorted and whole bunch pressed straight into a selection of large format seasoned French oak barrels for wild fermentation. Half the barrels went through a spontaneous malolactic fermentation. The result is a citrus, elegant wine with a lovely underlying acidity - subtle with plenty of fruit presence.
The wine was bottled on 4th February 2026 and is limited to only 200 cartons."
- Producer Note
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2025 Decades Coal River Pinot Noir
Offer: $79
"Our 2025 Pinot Noir has all the classic blue fruits that come from the Coal River Valley’s unique black clay soil. The fruit characters are dense, with a touch of Campari spice aroma, from the small whole bunch parcel. The region does fruit density exceptionally well, but we’ve tried to tease out a little perfume delicacy.
The fruit was hand-picked in two parcels. The first parcel fermented entirely as whole bunches. The second was de-stemmed, then cold soaked for 5 days before a slow wild fermentation. Both parcels were pressed into small seasoned French oak for malolactic fermentation and left on lees for 9 months.
The wine was bottled on 4th February 2026 and is limited to only 350 cartons."
- Producer Note
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