Alpha Box & Dice, McLaren Vale, Australia

Alpha Box & Dice

Home of the Alphabet of Wine and Life Improvement Plan.

Wines without boundaries - regional, varietal or stylistic. Wines whose entire raison d’être is to be delicious and to express the minutia and complexity of site and vintage conditions. Wines that enchant; wines that delight you and leave you betwixt the rock and a ripe grape. Through a series of random experiments in the field and adventures in vinous bricolage, these are our modest goals. In the words of Lewis Carroll “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” ….. Come follow us down the rabbit hole.

The story begins here:

Alpha Box & Dice svengali, Justin Lane’s path across the wine-scape is a complex one. Time spent in the vineyards of the Hunter Valley with weekends working at cellar door before serving his time as a cellar-hand in South Australia. Apprenticeship served he took a position as “flying winemaker” for a UK wine merchant working multiple vintages making wine in France and Italy. It was here that the architecture for the Alpha Box & Dice wines was drafted. Environments where a wines intellectual property is in the earth and it is treated more like a functional tool at the table, an extra knife in the hand.

Time spent in Moldova resonated strongly - 8000 years of winemaking history. Technology stripped back, taking simplicity to a whole new level, with the wine’s naked and speaking strongly of site and culture. Returning to Australia, Justin started making his own wine’s through a collection of vinous ideas that had been collected through his journey with the aim of practising more of the winemaking in the vineyard.

Less reliant on technology in the cellar, Justin started in an old shed with a 1955 Robley belt-driven pump that was rescued from a pile of rubbish in Reynella on Justin’s return to Australia. It still gets a run during vintage these days….. Great wine doesn’t need to be hi-tech. That intellectual property in the field and its application is paramount…. that is the crux of the wines at Alpha Box & Dice. The wines we make today are a culmination of our experiences in the past. It’s winemaking with a reduced toolbox….. sometimes even just the toolbox and no tools. Alpha Box & Dice came into being in 2008.

The context? People, food and environment. These are the endpoints. How best do we deal with our environment and out vines close to the coast? What is the most intelligent response to our environment, our raw materials; a response that will enhance the enjoyment of wine within the environment of the fine folks that enjoy our wines in good company with fine food.

The Alpha Box & Dice response is to explore other varieties beyond the norm that are suited to our region. The acidity in Barbera, the early ripening characteristics of Sangiovese, the warm-climate-pinot characters of McLaren Vale Grenache, the combined high acid and tannin of Aglianico. About 20 varieties in all, the United Nations of Wine. Varieties that can avoid the turbulence of the Australian summer and provide savoury, sapid lines and an abundance of pourmeanotherglassness™.

That’s what we are about. At first glance it ain’t so complicated. Look a little closer and its a Mandelbrot set of possibilities. Major keys, minor keys, mixolydian modes. The idea of wine as tonic, the tonal centre or resolution tone that is so tuneful it slips straight into your environment and acts like it has always been there. Context.

Wine bar, Cantina e vigneto

+61883237750

i@alphaboxdice.com

www.alphaboxdice.com

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8 Olivers Road, McLaren Vale, Australia

Internal parking

Alpha Box & Dice

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