John Casella bought Morris Wines for its wine legacy. But from the start, he saw another opportunity: turning its barrels and his beer “wash” into a serious Australian whisky business.
Now that bet has produced its rarest bottle yet: a single-barrel whisky from which just 270 bottles will be released, at $298 each.
The Morris Single Barrel Sherry Cask has spent six years maturing in a single ex-Sherry cask at Rutherglen in northern Victoria, and is being bottled at cask strength of 51.8% ABV. Each bottle is individually numbered, and because it comes from a single barrel, the release will never be repeated.
Casella redefined the category of accessible wines when he launched Yellow Tail into the US market in 2001 and launched himself into the rich lists.
When Casella bought Morris Wines in 2016, renaming it Morris of Rutherglen, he saw the potential in its disused still and thousands of barrels that the famed fortified winemaker had. Morris had in the past distilled its own spirit with which to fortify its wines, until it became cheaper to buy it elsewhere.
It was Casella who decided it was time to bring the still back to life, says David Morris, the then head winemaker at Morris. “He always enjoys his whisky, so he saw the still and thought, ‘Bang — right, we’ve got to get that still fixed up and repaired.’”
For current head winemaker, sixth-generation Madden Morris, the economics are clear. “Once a barrel hits end of life for a red wine — let’s say six to eight years — what do you do then? You’ve spent $1,500 on a barrel, and they might be $3,000 now for the expensive ones. So what do you do with that? You sell it to your garden guys, who chop them in half and use them?
“It’s a bit of a sustainability model. I’m taking something that we weren’t using, or might have been using for certain things and not getting a return from, and reusing it. And that includes the cost of having a cooper and having a cooperage set up to make the barrels for the whisky.”
For Casella, the whisky opportunity was always about expanding the market.
“The idea was that it would always be authentic Morris whisky, not a version of the Scottish or Irish or American. Anybody that tastes it will see that it is authentically Morris and it’s got its own signature taste and style.”
For the new release, head distiller Darren Peck selected a Palomino Apera-seasoned American oak cask from the historic Morris cellars. Six years of maturation in Rutherglen’s climate have produced a whisky the distillery describes as showing green apple, brown sugar and gentle spice.
Casella points to what he regards as an oddity in the Australian drinks market: a country that produces enormous quantities of barley, wine and beer, but imports most of its spirits.
“When you look at Australian wine, even Australian beer, I think it’s probably 80 or 90% domestically produced. When it comes to spirits, the opposite is the number — it’s probably 90-plus, 98% imported.
“Can you believe we’ve got the barley, we’ve got the facilities, we’ve got the water, we’ve got the capability, we’ve got the knowledge, and we still import 98%?
“I think we’ve got the right quality. We just need to try a bit harder to get consumers to buy our products, buy Australian products, support regional communities like Rutherglen because it’s important for the future that these regional areas maintain their vibrancy.”
To register for the Single Barrel Sherry Cask from September 2, go to morrisofrutherglen.com .
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