SAMI-ODI - MUSEUM RELEASE
Fraser McKinley’s Sami-Odi is a deeply personal, small-scale Barossa project focused exclusively on Syrah. Working primarily with old vines from the Hoffmann family’s Dallwitz vineyard in Ebenezer, and since 2020, from his own Our Hill vineyard in Angaston planted with wife Andrea—McKinley produces three wines annually in minuscule quantities.
A former winemaker at Torbreck and Standish, he began Sami-Odi in 2006 as a hobby, leasing a small parcel and crafting three barrels. Today it supports his family but retains its original ethos: respect for land and vine, early picking guided by pH rather than sugar, no acid additions, minimal sulfur, gentle extraction by foot, and gravity handling.
For Fraser, pH is the compass, a stylistic choice that determines balance and ultimately where the wine will land. As a result, fruit is harvested earlier than is typical in the Barossa, often as early as February, capturing freshness and natural equilibrium from the site. In the winery, intervention is minimal: no added acid of course, a modest sulfur addition, gentle foot pigeage, and gravity handling.
Sami-Odi has become one of Australia’s most revered cult producers, with long waiting lists and only tiny allocations available. Here we have a small range os his "Little Wine" which is highly complex and rich, and not so little.
