News

Friends of Punch

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:26:00 GMT

Friends of Punch was born following the loss of our 2009 vintage fruit at Lance's Vineyard, St Andrews during the Victorian Bushfires. It has been produced with help from other vineyards who generously lent their support by asking, how can we help? Our answer was simple - sell us some grapes! And they did. In each case they shared with us significant portions of their scant, wonderful 2009 crop.

We thank them sincerely.

Central Otago Pinot Noir 2009
Geelong Pinot Noir 2009
Geelong Syrah 2009
Gippsland Chardonnay 2209
Gippsland Noble Riesling 2009

To puchase our new Friends of Punch wines, please visit our online cellardoor

We're hosting our once a year cellardoor tasting at the vineyard and winery, 2130 Kinglake Rd St Andrews on Sunday 21 August, strictly from 2.00pm until 5.00pm, and a dinner at Taxi on Tuesday 23 August, exclusively to our mailing list, please contact us if you'd like to join so you can be invited to future tasting events and dinners.

Finally, the Punch Wine Dinner

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 04:46:00 GMT

We're finally doing it. The Punch Wine Dinner that we've been talking about for a year or more is happening at Mezzo Bar and Grill, 35 Little Bourke Street Melbourne on Tuesday 16 November, please see the Menu now and commence salivating.

Luke at Mezzo is an amazing Melbourne restauranter, and coincidentally our first trade supporter, so it's appropriate that he's hosting our first dinner too, and Joe has designed a harmonious menu for the wines. We hope to see you there for an evening of delicious food and wine.

Click on the bar to launch the Mezzo site and please call (03) 9650 0988 to book a seat or table.

In other news, we've just updated our stockists pages to reflect our new trade supporters across Australia, and we've updated our cellar door stock. As our stocks become scarce here, you might like to try our Places page.

Hope you're well and hopefully we'll see you soon!

Kind regards
Claire and James

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Back in the beginning...

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:37:00 GMT

Let's take you back to where it all started.

In 1975, after a two year quest for the perfect Yarra Valley site, David and Catherine Lance ended their search. They had found a beautiful twenty acres of sloping land overlooking the Diamond Creek in the hamlet of St Andrews. The soils were poor, thin and riddled with rock. The elevation was high (200m) but the site was a natural ampitheatre, perfect for capturing sunlight without excessive heat. Even better, because of it's isolated location, they could afford it!

First they built their home, then the family moved in, and we began planting the vineyard in 1976 (Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon), adding more plantings in 1984 (Chardonnay), 1989 (Close Planted Pinot Noir), 1998 and 2003 (Pinot Noir). The winery was built just in time for the 1989 vintage, moving the winemaking completely on to the estate.

Punch began on 1 January 2005, when we (James and Claire Lance) began leasing Lance's Vineyard and Winery, Yarra Valley, from David and Catherine Lance. We believe that this vineyard has proven itself to be one of Australia's distinguished sites, and our aim is to maximise the quality of the fruit grown here. In the winery we do as little as is beneficial, endeavouring to minimise additions and wine movements, to keep oak in the background, to be sensitive to each parcel of fruit. We want the wines to tell their own history.

Older posts

We've changed things slightly...

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:27:00 GMT

We've changed things slightly around here

Welcome to the new Punch website. We've hopefully made it easier to share our news, for you to join our mailing list and to even purchase wine (but, there's not a lot of that at the moment for various reasons!) We're really happy with how it looks too (big thanks to Rob and Di from Argonaut) who have been so gentle with us over the last months.

We're planning on updating our news more regularly too, so check back soon if you're not on the mailing list, as we're in the process of some winery and vineyard works after the fires that came through on 7 February 2009.

Our sincere condolences to everyone who has suffered in the February fires. We're so very grateful to be able to share our journey, to rebuild and regrow.

What are we listening to this week?

Getting the band back together

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:42:00 GMT

Getting the band back together

I wanted to write about this one now to give a heads up for anyone in Sydney, because Seun Kuti is coming, playing the Luminous Festival on 12 June. That's less than two weeks away. If you haven't heard, Seun Kuti has taken over the family business, and he's getting the band back together!

Seun is the youngest son of the mighty and legendary Fela Kuti, bandleader, saxophonist and co-founder of Afrobeat. In Nigeria in the late 60's, Fela and his drummer Tony Allen created one of my favourite musics, by mixing up funk, highlife and jazz with social and political commentary.

Unfortunately Fela left us 12 years ago, but Seun, also a saxophonist, has taken over bandleader duties with Egypt 80, Fela's long term band. And they have recently released Many Things, their first cd. It is monster.

Many Things is worth the price of admission just for "Don't give that shit to me", a track that shows how well Seun is keeping the politics in Afrobeat. But the rest is also great - funky, sharp, and modern. Egypt 80 are displaying the benefits of playing together for so long, they are tight and intuitive, but also sounding fresh and enlivened behind their new leader.

If you get the chance to see them play, I would absolutely recommend going. If not, then try Many Things. To Robert and Di, for alerting me to this cd, Many Thanks!

The kids are alright!

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:28:00 GMT

What are we listening to this week?

Welcome to the first installment of the Punch cd review. If you follow these you will pick some threads that my music taste follows, and today's points to two of these – guitars and 60's.

I first fell in love with The Who as a teenager when my future brother in law lent me a cassette of Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. Very teenage title.

Other vinyl followed, My Generation, Magic Bus, Live at Leeds, and finally I picked up a very scratchy second hand copy of Tommy – the movie soundtrack. I always baulked at the original Tommy, to me it sounded too folksy and half baked. The movie soundtrack was also hit and miss, with a couple of standout versions on it, but too much filler overall.

Recently on the radio I heard that the Smithereens - a band that I remembered liking back in their '80s heyday – had re-recorded Tommy, and my immediate thought was WHY? But then the radio played the opening three tracks, and I understood. So I went and picked it up. Reading the liner notes, the Smithereens explain that they are also big Who fans, loved the best tracks from Tommy, but wanted to hear them played somewhere between the folk of the original and the bombast of the Live at Leeds versions. So they did it themselves!

And I agree. These are cracking versions of the best tunes, the sound and playing wonderful.Great artwork on the cover, which leads to another win with this cd. We have a 4 and a 6 year old who both love music, animation, and stories. This Tommy ticks all three boxes.

I love it. The kids love it. And the kids are alright.

It's new release o'clock

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:35:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

We've just released our 2007 vintage from Lance's Vineyard, our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. For those of you who came in late, we lost our beloved Close Planted and Cabernet for 2007 to the big frost of 22 October 2006 (curses), so it's a very small release (so small that we've sold out of the Chardonnay already).

However, every cloud has a silver lining, we'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the Punch family, a lovely little (375mL) Noble Riesling from Gippsland. We've been making wine from this vineyard for some time, and in 2008 had the opportunity to acquire some fruit for Punch, and jumped at the chance. Every year the Riesling develops a beautiful Botrytis (Noble Rot) infection at about 11 Baume, which allows the wine to express Gippsland Riesling foremost, with an opulent overlay of classic citrus peel and honey. We love this wine (and trust you will too).

James and Claire

What are we listening to (reviews)