Before he became a winemaker, Troy Walsh spent 12 years on the floor as a sommelier at some of London’s best restaurants, including the Michelin-starred The Square, Morton’s private members’ club and David Thompson’s Nahm, where he wrote the wine list. It was a career that gave him access to remarkable bottles — and, just as importantly, to the people who made them.
Pinot Noir eventually pulled him towards Burgundy. “When I was looking at where to work in Burgundy, I wrote a list of the wines I enjoyed drinking and asked myself what the common denominators were,” he says. “They tended to be organic or biodynamic producers, with a strong leaning towards whole bunches and wild-yeast ferments, making unfined and unfiltered wines. So that’s sort of where I landed.”
He landed at Domaine de L’Arlot in Nuits-Saint-Georges, working under Olivier Leriche and then Jacques Devauges. The experience still shows in the way Walsh thinks about tannin, structure and perfume, and in his willingness to let stems play a serious role in the finished wine.
Burgundy also brought him into contact with Sylvain Pellegrini, who later worked at Domaine Leflaive and is now vineyard manager at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. The two have stayed in touch, and Pellegrini still tastes Attwood’s wines, bringing a Burgundian set of eyes — and palate — to the table.
Hommage is his clearest nod to that period: a Pinot Noir from the Glenlyon vineyard in Macedon, made with 100 per cent whole bunches. On paper that sounds like a lot, yet the wine is far from overtly bunchy. “I don’t think anyone says the wines are overtly stemmy,” Walsh says. “Sometimes there’s more of a perception than a reality around that.” To avoid bruising the stems, the wine is worked only once a day, largely by foot.
For Walsh, whole bunches are less a stylistic statement than a structural tool. “We’re now looking at using even more stems in our premium wines — our top wines are getting closer to 100 per cent whole bunch — because of the structure, the fine tannin and the elegance it gives.”
Whatever he is doing, it is working. The 2023 Attwoods Hommage is gorgeously aromatic, silky and age-worthy: less Burgundy cosplay than brilliant, authentic, high-grown Victorian Pinot Noir.
The fruit comes from Attwoods’ Glenlyon vineyard, with the best parcels of MV6 and 114 clones selected in equal measure. Fermentation takes place in open-top wooden fermenters with 100% whole bunches, worked only once a day, largely by foot. The wine is then basket pressed and aged for 18 months in a single new 500-litre barrel.
And single really does mean single: just one barrel is made, yielding around 600 bottles. The whole bunches bring perfume, spice and architecture, while the large-format new oak gives shape without sanding away the wine’s edges. It is less about immediate charm than slow revelation — a wine intended to gather complexity, savour and detail with time.
Put it away for three to five years if you can. Ten in a good cellar should not trouble it.
“This is the winemaker’s hommage to his time working at Domaine de l’Arlot, Burgundy. The epitome of the iron fist in the velvet glove; a wine of deceptive power and gentle persuasion. Brings in layers of savoury game meats, red earth, nettle, undergrowth, black cherry and plum, dark spice and bright herbal notes that build and build in the glass. Dark and imposing, there is an intricate complexity built around a deep mesh of savoury, fine tannins, tightly knit and imposing. Texturally, it moves like silk. It’s going to age a treat.” 95 points, Jeni Port, Halliday Wine Companion