Massena
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Massena was established at the turn of the century by Jaysen Collins and Dan Standish. In Jaysen's own words "What started as an adventure into wine by a couple of gung-ho fellas, looking to make some interesting wine, has truly been a journey. We started off by respecting our old vines and focussing on Grenache and Shiraz, moved quickly into alternative varieties and our production methods always held true to minimal intervention.
In some ways we were trailblazers, in front of the curve; in new varieties or style interpretations. Like making dry, light, textured, barrel fermented Rosé in 2007 and getting blank looks as to why we’d been doing this - roll forward ten years and everyone’s got one of these. Why would you plant Saperavi, Primitivo and Tannat in the heady days of the early 2000s Barossa Shiraz obsession? We were looking for drought tolerant, thick skinned or higher acid varieties that would combat our changing climate. When the style was big, black and oaky, ours was herbal, spicy and lowly oaked - designed for the dinner table not a glass staining contest. Now this is becoming the norm in our part of the world."
Jaysen continues "Massena was not started as a profit making, slickly marketed wine company, it was conceptualised to have fun making wine that we liked to drink or had an interest in learning how to make. Our board meetings were on the golf course followed by a long lunch, when we really should have been combing through our sales budgets or strategising our cost saving initiatives. That sounded boring and we were only in it to actually make the wine, not ordering someone to do it for us. The authenticity in Massena is it has always been about making the most interesting wine possible at that given time and thoroughly enjoying the process, not chasing what is the current fad or trend. Then suddenly you become old enough in the cycle that the style of the day just rolls around and finds you!"
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