Fleet Wines
Who we are
Lisa and Justin Jenkins have a clear, dynamic idea of what makes an alluring wine, loaded with charisma. With 30+ years of combined hospitality experience at some of Melbourne’s iconic wine bars and restaurants, they’ve tasted some of the world’s best wines. With this in mind, they’ve turned their hands to winemaking. At the core of their wines are flavour, texture and enjoyment.
In 2016, the couple returned to South Gippsland where Justin grew up, to make wine. The name ‘Fleet Wines’ is born from the couple’s openness to sourcing grapes from further afield. Working with tiny amounts, these wines are celebrated for being of the moment and limited in their release. Each Fleet Wine speaks of both place and variety.
Each wine captures a fleeting moment in time, made by two intrinsic wine and food pros chasing flavour and vibrancy.
With a glass of Fleet in hand, and friends by your side, you can only enjoy yourself!
Why We're Different
Shrugging convention, Fleet’s approach to wine is refreshingly open. Nothing is formulaic, each vintage and plot of fruit is cajoled into being the best it can be. This means each release is incredibly exciting, often a little unpredictable. What is always guaranteed is that it will be deliciously pure and fun. Great wines to share with your friends - they always excite and over-deliver on personality!
Lisa’s extensive hospitality background (she’s both a qualified chef and sommelier) has led her to wine show judging and undertaking the very demanding WSET Diploma in Wines. Her ability to inject her technical background into making delicious and evocative wines runs through all Fleet wines.
Justin’s affinity with South Gippsland shines through in these soulful wines. The young family are so committed to the region they recently bought a small farm, just outside Leongatha. Spring 2021 will see the first planting of pinot noir and chardonnay vines. With a house and chickens to follow down the track.
2021 Fleet Wines Single Vineyard Releases
2021 Fleet ‘Young Wine’ Pinot Gris Mornington Peninsula
Textural and Alluring Skin-Contact White
This 2021 Fleet Pinot Gris from Mornington Peninsula is a heady and spiced wine, packed with white floral and orchard fruit. A delightfully brash pinot gris loaded with
flavour. But what really stands out are the tea-like tannins, thanks to some cleverly handled skin contact. This wine has dimension and appeals to those who want a little bit more from their whites.
‘Pink peach colour, floral aromas, spiced pears, textural fleshy core, long quenching acidity, expressive and never-ending.’
VINEYARD
Dunns Creek Estate, Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula
North facing rows + slope
Soil is deep, friable basalt rich clay loam
Vine age: 22 years
WINEMAKING
30% de-stemmed and pressed to neutral oak puncheons (500lt)
70% fermented on skins for 21 days, then pressed to tank
Wines then blended together and stirred, then racked prior to bottling
Minimal sulphur, un-fined and un-filtered
Wineanorak review by Jamie Goode
Posted on 12 March 2022
12.8% alcohol. 60% fermented on skins for 20 days. Wonderful aromatics with spice, smoke, orange peel and peach. There’s a minty edge to the palate with lovely texture. Grainy but still showing lots of bright citrus and cherry fruit. Lovely stuff.
94/100
2021 Fleet ‘Young Wine’ Syrah Rosé South Gippsland
Savoury and subtly spiced summer wine
This thirst-quenching, dry rosé is summer in a glass. Bright and floral with a salivating tail of acidity. It’s hard to believe how quickly a glass evaporates!
‘Dusty pale pink colour, aromas of fresh strawberry, red currants, hint of herbal spice. Palate is fine and savoury, textural, with a dry crisp finish.’
VINEYARD
100% Syrah organically grown at our Leongatha vineyard in South Gippsland
North facing rows, east facing slope
Fertile basalt clay loam soils (ferosols)
Vine age: 32 years
WINEMAKING
Fruit was hand-picked and whole bunch pressed to neutral puncheons (500lt)
Lees stirred often to build texture and weight
Minimal sulphur, un-fined and un-filtered
2021 Fleet ‘Young Wine’ Pinot Noir South Gippsland
Crunchy & Fresh
This 2021 Fleet Gippsland Pinot is bright and fresh. This wine is light bodied and moreish!
‘Crunchy and fresh. Bright cherry red in colour, vibrant nose, red fruits, blood plum, cranberries, herbal spice. Fleshy core, earthy palate with a savoury finish with really long, super fine tannins.’
VINEYARD
Organically grown at our Leongatha vineyard in South Gippsland
North facing rows, east facing slope
Fertile basalt clay loam soils (ferosols)
Vine age: 32 years
WINEMAKING
80% de-stemmed, fermented on skins
20% fermented as whole bunch
All pressed to neutral oak hogsheads (300lt) and barriques (225lt)
Racked once prior to bottling
Minimal sulphur, un-fined and un-filtered
2021 Fleet ‘Young Wine’ Pinot Noir Mornington Peninsula
Plush & Spicy
This 2021 Fleet Mornington Peninsula Pinot is vibrant and earthy. Its spicy nature is tempered by a heady mix of florals and long ripe fruit.
‘Deep dark heady spices – anise, rich powerful brambly, plummy fruit. Plush texture and the tannins are silky and slinky.’
VINEYARD
Dunns Creek Estate, Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula
North facing rows + slope
Soil is deep, friable basalt rich clay loam
Vine age: 22 years
WINEMAKING
100% de-stemmed, fermented on skins
All pressed to neutral oak hogsheads (300lt)
Racked once prior to bottling
Minimal sulphur, un-fined and un-filtered
2021 Fleet 'Elevate' Noir | Gris - Red Hill
Elevate
2019 was the first year of Elevate. 2021 is our follow up. A blend of related grape varieties, that remains unconventional. The name describes our desire to grow, to risk, and to propel ourselves further toward knowing. Always dreaming, always learning.
‘Aromatic, punchy fruit. The palate is electric with pure red fruits. Alluring and bright aromas, spiced liquorice plums. Fleshy texture with a long savoury, crunchy finish.’
VINEYARD
Dunns Creek, farmed by Moorooduc Estate - Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula
North facing rows and slope
Soil is deep, friable basalt rich clay loam
Vine age 22 years
WINEMAKING
75% Pinot Noir (de-stemmed), 25% Pinot Gris (whole bunch pressed)
Pressed into neutral oak hogsheads (300lt)
Minimal sulphur at bottling
This wine was bottled un-fined and un-filtered
Winefront Review by Mike Bennie
Posted on 28 March 2022
"Fleet Elevate sounds like a car name or maybe something you do on a corporate team building exercise, but in reality it’s a noir and gris blend of the pinot kinds from Mornington Peninsula. The vineyard is farmed by Moorooduc. The wine made in Gippsland.
Slurpy, snappy red of lighter, fresh feel albeit some sticky, sweet fruited concentration in the mix of things too. While the fruit is red and pretty and rosy, the finish is neat and dry, a bit talc-like in pucker and there’s a coolness underlying that keeps things perky, refreshing. Texture is great, actually, and with time in glass seems to get a little firmer and precise. A very good wine, this."
93 Points
(Image: Fleet Wines Website)
2021 Fleet 'Chorus' Pinot Noir | Chardonnay | Syrah
Chorus
A new wine in the house for us, inspired by viewing the vineyard as a whole and letting the varieties come together and sing... much like that hook in a song that keeps you coming back!
A red wine built on texture and freshness that is modelled on finding a really pleasurable experience of place regardless of the variety.
Made with roughly representative proportions of what’s grown in the vineyard with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. Each variety has an influence, but works in harmony with the others.
‘Bright cherry, earthy, herbal/brambly aromatics, bright lifted wild raspberries, sappy/crunchy texture, silty/fine tannins. It has understated weight and texture. It’s an endlessly interesting wine that leaves you wanting more.’
VINEYARDS
Organically grown at our Leongatha vineyard in South Gippsland
North facing rows, east facing slope
Fertile basalt clay loam soils (ferosols)
Vine age: 32 years
WINEMAKING
80% Pinot Noir (de-stemmed) matured in neutral hogsheads, 10% Chardonnay (whole bunch pressed) matured in stainless steel, 10% Syrah Rosé (whole bunch pressed) matured in stainless steel.
Minimal sulphur at bottling
This wine was bottled un-fined and un-filtered
Winefront Review by Mike Bennie
Posted on 28 March 2022
"A blend of pinot noir, chardonnay and syrah from Gippsland and good people. One for drinking with a bit of a chill, me thinks.
Light and fresh, bright and wholly red fruited. Bounces around the palate nicely, a little crunch and minerally character, flecks of minty herb and lots of cranberry tang and the resulting dryness. Vivacious red wine, not particularly complex but ultra delicious. Right on."
92 Points
2021 Fleet Glen Forbes Chardonnay
Flinty & Textural
It’s a deliciously textural wine that offers an array of orchid fruits; preserved lemons, pears & quince with top notes of white flowers, and flinty/wet stone characters. The black sandy soils situated in these cooler parts of South Gippsland give depth, structure and power to this chardonnay.
Drink now or cellar for 5-10 years.
‘Bright lemon/straw colour, sea spray/oyster shell, pear & quince with a flinty/mineral core driving the palate. A textural wine, that builds in the glass, grilled hazelnut, with fine-boned acidity weaving throughout.’
VINEYARD
Bass River Winery - Glen Forbes, South Gippsland
South-east aspect, rows run north to south
Fertile, black sandy soils with subsurface over cemented sands (coffee rock)
Vineyard planted in 1998
WINEMAKING
50% Whole bunch pressed to tank for settling, then racked to a neutral puncheon for fermentation
50% de-stemmed & fermented on skins for 7 days, then pressed into a new Stockinger Puncheon to finish fermentation, full malo for this portion
Lees stirred, then racked prior to bottling
2021 Fleet Leongatha Pinot Noir
Elegant and Pure
The 2021 ‘White Label’ Leongatha Pinot Noir jumps straight from the glass, it has vibrancy and typicity in spades. Wild raspberry & strawberries, and that classic earthy/autumnal undercurrent that South Gippsland is renowned for!
Drink now or cellar for 5-10 years.
‘Dark crimson red colour, vibrant lifted aromatics on the nose, wild raspberry &strawberries spiced damson plums, savoury/earthiness and brown spice begin unfurling in the glass, with silty/slippery pinot tannins carrying the fruit to a long finish.’
VINEYARD
Leongatha Vineyard, South Gippsland
North facing rows, on an easterly aspect
Deep, basalt rich clay loam soils
Vineyard planted in 1990
WINEMAKING
60% de-stemmed, naturally fermented for 18 days
40% Whole bunch cluster fermentation for 21 days
Pressed to puncheons - 20% new
Bottled Un-fined & Un-filtered
2021 Fleet Red Hill Pinot Noir
Deep & Powerful
The 2021 ‘White Label’ Red Hill Pinot Noir has depth, structure and a powerful core of fruit. The heady spices wrap around a plush core of vibrant black current, dark cherry fruits. Its brambly, and layered, and had great detail and length.
Drink now or cellar for 5-10 years.
‘Deep Burgundy red colour, ripe blood plums and black cherries. Intense five-spice aromas swirling around a fleshy textural core of fruit. Powerful yet fine gravelly tannins, super long finish.’
VINEYARD
Dunns Creek Vineyard, Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula
North facing rows and slope
Soil is deep, friable basalt rich clay loam
Vine age: 22 years approx
WINEMAKING
50% de-stemmed, naturally fermented for 18 days
50% Whole bunch cluster fermentation
Pressed to neutral barriques
Bottled Un-fined & Un-filtered
2021 Fleet 'Nostalgia' Pinot Noir
NOSTALGIA embraces emotions and love. We reflect on the connection to a place, and how that connection is both at once comforting, but coloured with longing and loss. It is through a lens of connection and longing we decided to make a wine that is a pure expression of a place, a terrior. This is Leongatha, South Gippsland. Country we love.
Drink this now with a decant, or cellar over the next 5-10 years.
‘Bright crimson red colour, perfumed aromatics – florals, cherry, plums – with earthy, spice notes. Leading to a complex and layered palate. A lot of structure and fruit weight, with purity and drive with acid and tannin interplay. Interesting, intriguing and alluring.
VINEYARD
Leongatha Vineyard, South Gippsland
North facing rows, on an easterly aspect
Deep, basalt rich clay loam soils
Vineyard planted in 1990
WINEMAKING
20% de-stemmed, naturally fermented for 18 days
80% Whole bunch cluster fermentation for 21 days
Pressed to puncheons – 20% new
Bottled Un-fined & Un-filtered
Winefront review by Kasia Sobiesiak
"A Pinot Noir from Lisa and Justin Jenkins that is their “barrel selection” or “reserve” bottling. 20% destemmed, 80% whole bunch, elevage in puncheons (20% new), unfined, unfiltered. Purity and aromatics.
Full of raspberries, red cherries, wild strawberries, red plums and pomegranate overtones. All fresh and cool fruits that carry plenty of graceful details and spice. Touches the palate lightly with floral perfume and a firm line of flavour. Ever-so-gentle licks of tannins are there too. Mona Lisa smile type of wine and quality with utter charm."
93 Points
(Image: Fleet Wines)