A night with Bellebonne’s Natalie Fryar – Chez vous!

It’s my great pleasure to invite you to welcome one of Australia’s greatest and most celebrated sparkling winemakers to a tasting at your place! I have dubbed Natalie Fryar ‘Australia’s rosé queen’ and I anointed her inaugural Bellebonne release as my Sparkling Rosé of the Year 2018.

I announced Bellebonne two years ago as the most important and the most sublime new sparkling label in a very long time – and it would have to be the smallest, too! Natalie is a genius of the intricacies of sparkling growing and making, and yet she’s one of the most down-to-earth people you’ll meet in your life. Hers is no silver spoon story. To pay for the fruit, Natalie sold a house, drove ‘a crappy car’ and worked waitressing shifts.

It’s not only her wines that I find so compelling about a tasting with Natalie. When the cameras stopped rolling after I interviewed her for my television series ‘People of the Vines’ in her former role as Jansz winemaker five years ago, I exclaimed that I could just listen to her speaking for hours – something I’ve never said to a winemaker before. After she supported my Tasmanian showcase tasting in San Francisco two years ago, one of our media guests described her to me as ‘a national treasure, perhaps the most articulate person I’ve ever spoken to in the wine world.’

I promise that after an encounter with Natalie, you will never see Tasmania and its sparkling wines in the same way again.

Natalie and I look forward to seeing you - at your place!

Santé,

Tyson.