2025 Astro Bunny Pét-Nat

Riverland, McLaren Vale - South Australia

Fiano 43%, Malvasia Bianca 32%, Nero d’Avola 13%, Prieto Picudo 7%, Montepulciano 5%

“A cult classic of the minimal intervention scene” - @LoveTillyDevine

“Utterly frivolous” - Jancis Robinson MW

“Australia’s favourite pét-nat” ™

The 2025 vintage marks twelve years of Wildman Wine pét-nats, and the second using 100% fully biodynamic and organic fruit. The aim from when we started back in 2014 remains the same to this day, to make South Australian sparkling pét-nats that are fresh, fruity, foaming, fun and fault free using climate appropriate Mediterranean varieties.

How We Made It

The 2025 vintage in South Australia was a real curve ball, with a warm dry Spring then a hot dry Summer, the conditions resulted in one of the earliest growing seasons of the last decade, but one not without it’s challenges. The conditions meant that the sugar level of the grapes were racing ahead of the actual flavour (phenolic) ripeness. A year like this requires contestant vigilance in the vineyard and almost daily tasting of fruit to determine when the flavour ripeness catches up with the sugars. Pick too early and you’ll have those green, underripe flavours in the final wine, hold your nerve and you’ll get balanced flavours, but risk higher sugars and higher final alcohols. We opted for the latter approach, and because we don’t make any adjustments in the winery the wine ended up being at least one degree of alcohol higher than usual, but this juicy, fruit forward version of Astro Bunny is a true reflection of an exceptional and unusual vintage.

The whites (Fiano and Malvasia Bianca) were picked on February 12th and showed nice, fresh acidity with the reds (Nero d’Avola, Prieto Picudo and Montepulciano) picked on March 1st, still with good acidity thanks to their Mediterranean heritage, but with higher sugars than usual. The Malvasia was given 24 hours pre-ferment skin contact to extract greater aromatics, the Nero was taken from the press after just a few hours to provide colour, then co-fermented with the Fiano and Malvasia. The wine always goes into bottle a bright candy pink colour which transforms into the classic peachy orange over winter, a result of us not using any sulphur so the brighter red and pink colour compounds fall out of solution. The wine is bottled at approximately 12 g/L residual sugar and completes its fermentation in the bottle over the winter becoming fully dry and resulting in a final pressure of around 3 bar, producing a gentle foam rather than an aggressive fizz. Wild yeast, no adds, no filtration, no fining, zero sulphur = 100% natural goodness

How It Tastes

The blend is the classic Bunny trifecta of early picked Fiano with Nero d’Avola for colour and Malvasia for the distinctive aromatics. The colour is a peachy, hazy, lava lamp orange, the lifted aromas combine white peach, clementine and a touch of honeydew melon. The bubbles are soft and foamy, with the classic Astro Bunny flavours of peach, tangerine and a lick of cut lime, white pepper and fennel on the finish that keeps it fresh. She’s fun! I was asked to describe our wines in three words recently and I said “Fun, fruity and fault-free” (well maybe that’s four). To that you could add foaming, frothy, fresh and fantastic. Chill down, shake well before opening, serving suggestion: beach or bus, two people, ten minutes.

Astro Bunny works well as an aperitif or simply to drink on it’s own al fresco. The soft texture and peachy, citrus flavours make it a great pairing for seafood, shellfish, salads and even fresh fruit desserts.

13% ABV | sugar 1.1 g/ L | free S02 0.00 mg/l L. total SO2 5mg / L
pH 3.8 | titratable acidity 4.0g/l L | 14,744 bottles 180 magnums

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