Exploring Winemaking: The Maverick Philosophy

3 days ago

Where wine gets wild

If your glass is glowing amber, cloudy gold or pale copper, welcome to the wild side. Maverick wines are all about instinct. Texture. Fermentation that feels alive. They are the wines that make people lean in and say what on earth is this in the best possible way.

The Maverick philosophy refuses to play safe. It wants energy and texture more than perfection.

How a Maverick winemaker thinks

If you were the Maverick today, here is how your choices would unfold:

Forget the rules
You might co ferment varieties that rarely meet. You might decide skins should stay in the tank longer for grip and colour.

Ferment wild and open
Maverick ferments are alive. Open top vats. Punch downs by hand. Aromas of apricot skins and spice filling the room.

Age in old barrels
Not for flavour. For air. For slow oxygen. For texture.

Never filter
If the wine is cloudy, so what. Cloudiness is honesty. Cloudiness is character

Blend for energy, not neatness
Solera systems. Older vintages folded into newer ones. A sense of history baked into each sip.

The global Maverick

The wild hearts of winemaking live everywhere.

Georgia with its ancient amber qvevri wines
Friuli and Slovenia with long skin contact whites
Catalonia and the Basque Country with natural, cloudy blends
Australia’s natural wine movement led by minimal intervention pioneers

These are the winemakers who chase texture and tension.

What Jose does at Vagabond

Night Tripper is classic Jose mischief. Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc co fermented. Seven days on skins. Nine months in old Burgundy barrels. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Solena is even bolder. Ortega on skins for twelve days. Aged under flor. Blended with a solera that goes back to 2018.
Magic through controlled chaos.