Handmade cool climate wines
Year after year the aim is the same: make it better.
“All going well, not one of us will
outlive the vines or barrel press,
my Father’s passata sauce pot
or his Dad’s pitch fork -
so our aim in the meantime is
to share our traditions with you.”
– Stefano Marasco, Winemaker/Owner
Custodians
Curlewis for us is about doing our best as custodians. The Curlewis MV6 vines are amongst the oldest Pinot Noir vines on the Bellarine. Our French-style basket press has been handed down from winemaker to winemaker. We hold cooking classes to pass on our grandparents’ and parents’ recipes for Italian salami, cacciatore and sauces. Eventually our wines move from our cellar to yours, and our recipes from our grandparents’ notebooks to your kitchens.
Every year, our winemakers Stefano Marasco and Rainer Breit fine-tune our farming and winemaking processes to make better wine. Some years nature is with us, and some years against us, but it’s never boring.
Since Rainer Breit established and started making wine at Curlewis Winery, there has been one goal – to make better wine. Rainer set his sights on a French (Burgundian) style Pinot Noir – a wine that a Grand Cru drinker would enjoy, at a more affordable price. Curlewis Winery has enjoyed success with all of its Pinot Noir Releases. As current owners of Curlewis Winery, winemaker Stefano Marasco and Leesa Freyer continue to work with Rainer to make Curlewis wine better using an artisan approach to handmade winemaking which starts with pruning and ends at bottling.
Vineyard planted in 1985
Curlewis Winery established in 1997
Owners Stefano Marasco and Leesa Freyer May 2011
Curlewis Winery
55 Navarre Road, CURLEWIS, Bellarine Peninsula, VIC 3222
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