“Arneis, a white varietal originating in Piedmont in north-west Italy, has found a home much closer to us – in Wallaroo,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

I last wrote about a Pankhurst Arneis in 2022, reviewing the 2019 vintage.

Arneis, a white varietal originating in Piedmont in north-west Italy, has found a home much closer to us – in Wallaroo. In the years since, several vintages have followed, and the 2022 was recently tasted on release.

It is a wine of a high standard. I thank Alan and Christine Pankhurst for providing not only a bottle, but also a bunch of arneis grapes. They were sweet, though marked by large pips that set them apart from table grapes, an apt reminder that this is a varietal with structure as well as charm.

Speaking of generosity, I made a generous donation to my future self last week by staying home rather than going out, saving, among other things, on hideously expensive petrol. I briefly considered siphoning some but concluded it is still cheaper (and safer) to drink wine at home.

In a conversation about this wine, Alan told me that the 2022 arneis was recently invited to participate in the Young Gun of Wine “Deep Dive into Arneis”. 

In a blind tasting, it was placed in the top six by more members of the panel than any other wine. 

Founded in 2007, Young Gun of Wine takes an approach to evaluation that is aligned with my own: “We’ll review specific wines, but what we’ll never do is reduce them to a mark out of 20 or 100.

“To us, scores are the dark side of wine. They miss the point. People obsess over them. They reduce something complex, something subjective down to a simple set of numbers. Wine should not be colour by numbers.”

This old musket (muscat, anyone?) is in full agreement. And, in this case, I also agree with their assessment of the Pankhurst 2022 Arneis.

The tasting process involved a panel of winemakers, sommeliers and other experts assessing as many Australian arneis wines as could be assembled. All wines were tasted blind, with each panellist selecting their top six, the wines that were most compelling.

I tasted the wine over dinner with my son and daughter. One of the panel’s comments resonated strongly with us. My daughter described the Pankhurst arneis as akin to a sauvignon blanc, but better and classier, with a longer finish and none of the sharp edges often found in a “savvy b”.

A Young Gun panellist captured a similar idea, describing the arneis as “Marlborough sauv blanc’s older sister – more refined, more complex, and with a spicy edge from having summered abroad.” Snap.

My son, meanwhile, thought it paired beautifully with our chicken dish, equally at home as an aperitif or alongside fish or poultry.

For my part, I admire the balance. The pear-like finish integrates neatly with the acidity, giving the wine both shape and generosity on the palate. At $30 a bottle, it is an agreeable and highly approachable wine.

“Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.” –Kahlil Gibran