Sittella Wines on the Swan Valley. Sittella Wines FaceBook – James Burton Photography
Sittella is a family-owned Swan Valley based winery producing superb sparkling wines from grapes grown in the cool, southern WA region of Pemberton.
Sittella wines are mostly sold in WA, but deserve to be better known in the eastern states. Currently, their main presence in the East is on-premise and there is no wholesaler, so buyers must go direct.
Sittella wines are mostly sold in WA, but deserve to be better known in the eastern states.
The winery was started by Perth GP Simon Berns and his wife Maaike in the mid-1990s, and their son Yuri, who graduated in viticulture and winemaking from Curtin University in 2011, is the chief winemaker. While Sittella produces Swan Valley and Margaret River table wines, Yuri has a passion for sparkling wine: he won the student section of the Vin de Champagne Award in 2010 and returned to Champagne in 2013 to work and gain experience with Champagne house, Geoffroy.
Sittella’s sparkling wine program was initiated while former Domaine Chandon winemaker Colby Quirk was working at Sittella. Yuri Berns explains that he has been fortunate to have great mentors in Dr Tony Jordan (Domaine Chandon and later a consultant), former Houghton chief winemaker Rob Bowen, his lecturers from Curtin Uni, and this year former Accolade chief winemaker Paul Lapsley is helping out.
Sittella, incidentally, is the name of a small, insect-eating Australian native bird.
Sittella’s cellar door is just a 30-minute
This Article was originally published on The Real Review
