There’s not much Pete Schell turns his hand to that doesn’t turn to gold, and his rosé, considered a benchmark by many and a brilliant wine by all, is firmly in the conversation regarding Australia’s best. In exceptional seasons, Pete and partner Magali also make Luxe, a small-batch wine embracing the most fragrant and expressive fruit the vintage has to offer. The cool, late and long 2023 season delivered the calibre considered vital to making this top-tier bottling. Pete honed his rosé skills in the vineyards and cellars of the style’s spiritual homeland of Provence and at Turkey Flat before setting out on his own with Spinifex in 2001. His experience led him to find a natural resonance between the Mediterranean varieties, old vineyards and warm, dry climate of the Barossa Valley and the kind of rosé wines he liked to drink and make. “There’s something that works here for rosé, a harmony between variety and climate. It just makes sense,” he told us. For the Luxe, Pete selects the deepest, most innately complex parcels with natural weight and plush texture. This year’s Luxe sees a deviation in style, made to capture freshness, purity and fine detail as opposed to the past’s more savoury, full-bodied wines. Pursuing this more elegant style seemed the logical path for this dynamic winemaker. “I feel like I’m getting better fruit expression and purity in my rosé wines,” he explains. “We’re leaning more on the vineyard rather than trying to push the wine in the cellar. We’re doing less and getting a better result.” Below, we offer Luxe alongside the regular Spinifex Rosé from the same year. Both are insanely delicious and striking examples of the heights Australian rosé can scale in the right hands.