Rare Foods Australia is the only wild enhanced abalone fishery in the world, and recently expanded into a new challenge – taking the plunge into ocean cellaring. Keira Joyce speaks with the project's general manager, Simon Hanley, about the subsea wine development.
In 2021, Ocean Grown Abalone rebranded to become Rare Foods Australia (RFA), a decision made to prepare the company for future growth and opportunities.
With its global reputation for abalone, the company expanded the varieties it farmed, but also started to explore other areas of innovation.
One of those was subsea wine production. General manager for the cellaring project, Simon Hanley, gave Food & Drink Business a rundown of the process, and how close it is to consumers’ shelves.
“Part of the allure of this project was blending my passions together – surfing and diving in the ocean, and wine making – and never in my life would I have dreamed that you could have joined the two together,” says Hanley.
Hanley has been involved in beer and wine innovation for 30 years in Australia and internationally, including teaching winemaking at a university. He joined RFA a year ago after the company’s initial subsea wine trials.
The ocean cellaring project was initially inspired by the discovery of perfectly preserved wine in European shipwrecks, which expanded to the very first southern hemisphere subsea wine project, and a global first for open waters.
“It is a true innovation in winemaking. We’re not just maturing wine in the ocean, but also fermenting it there. The ocean is a partner in the winemaking process,” says Hanley.
“It's very low impact on the environment, as we don't use refrigeration and electricity to keep our wine cool or to stir it – we're relying on the ocean to do that for us. We aim to work with the ocean in everything we do. The lease we have for the abalone business is so big that it’s become a habitat and breeding ground for certain species of fish.”
RFA previously worked with local producer, Edwards Wines, maturing around 2000 bottles each of its cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. It also partnered with Glenarty Rd winery to bottle, ferment, and condition sparkling wine.
Undersea partnership
Rare Foods then went to Bordeaux, France and met with Winereef International to discuss a possible partnership to develop its technology in Australia or the southern hemisphere.
Winereef has patented ocean fermentation technology, using subsea vats that are tethered to the ocean floor.
With Winereef’s technology, RFA brought its ocean lease, boats, infrastructure, divers, and “all of the other things that would be prohibitively expensive for wineries” to the table, Hanley says.
“We're currently more than midway through a trial, with 22 vats that have been deployed in the ocean.
“Tethered to the ocean floor at a depth of 20 metres, the vats have been submerged for around six months and are scheduled to be retrieved in November,” he explains.
The company’s location in Western Australia gives it access to established winemakers in the Margaret River region, with RFA already partnering with some wineries on subsea wine products.
“I’m liaising directly with the region’s wine producers to source the best wines for what we’re looking for – from purchasing grapes from local growers, through the winemaking process, and right up to when it is deployed in the ocean.
“After retrieval, it goes back to a winery to be finished and processed like traditional wine. It’s effectively been fermenting and maturing in a barrel, so it goes back through the blending process, through stabilisation, and into traditional wine packaging for sale,” Hanley says.
Under the sea
“Once the wine is in the ocean, a lot happens to it that can’t be replicated on land. However, you still have to put it in a bottle, so we’re using traditional packaging companies and wineries for that part of the process,” he says.
Hanley says the project hasn’t been without its challenges, including in keeping the vats tethered to the ocean floor. Winereef matures its product in a calm harbour in Bordeaux, vastly different conditions to the open ocean, two kilometres off the coast, that RFA uses.
“We developed specialised sea anchors and techniques for our divers to use to deploy them. The vats are roughly 300 litres each, so large anchors were needed that wouldn’t disturb the sea grass.
“We often do a dive to make sure they’re safe and secure, that they haven’t moved, and whether there's any breakage or any risk of them becoming dislodged. Sometimes the swell reaches around eight metres, so they’re in constant movement all year, 24 hours a day.”
Hanley says fermentation at 20 metres deep develops a “very different aroma and flavour profile” to that on land. According to Hanley, white wines become richer and more complex while red wines soften and develop a more fruit forward style.
Variables at play
“The amount of movement, pressure, and time in the ocean are the variables we're using and working with to control the flavour of the wine in the long term,” he says.
“We are looking at around nine to 12 months for a deployment, and we're going to be tasting those wines at six months.
“We'll retrieve one barrel to look at its progress. We will then make decisions in line with traditional winemaking, tasting the wine to see if the flavour profile is what we’re after.”
RFA is planning to produce a pure ocean wine, made from 100 per cent ocean deployed product, as well as a 50 per cent blend.
The intensive process means the pure ocean wine will be a more expensive premium option, while the blended varietal will allow for a more introductory pricing.
“We want to give people an experience that is still affordable and accessible, so not as significantly different in a flavour profile as the pure ocean wine.”
Hanley says the next vintage is expected to be ready for the 2024/25 summer period, and the company is in the process of developing a wine brand.
RFA is planning to increase production in 2025 and build its reputation as a producer of sustainable wine – aged in the unlikeliest of places.
This article first appeared in the October/November edition of Food & Drink Business magazine.
