Outside The Box Wines

About

Outside The Box Wines began in 2014, when winemaker Brad Frederickson wanted to start a label but had no money to do so, and wasn’t finished ‘doing the travelling winemaker thing’. So, he created his logo and continued his winemaker travels. In 2020 Brad officially established his label, and is making very good, very tiny batches of alternative wine. Read on for Brad’s story!

“The idea of making alt wines has been with me since I studied. I can remember not being able to accept that white wines were fermented without their skins and red wines were. ‘It makes the wines too phenolic, and that’s not what white wines are meant to be’ was more or less the answer I got. I can remember thinking I would do it one day just to see if I could get it right.  

I had my first “Yeah why not” moment in 2010 when I had a bucket of Hawke’s Bay Syrah berries and a quarter bucket of Riesling bunches left over from processing at the winery I was working for. I thought ‘well they put Viognier in Syrah in the Rhone – “Yeah why not”. In went the Riesling bunches. I still have a couple of bottles of this. Aging very well. 

Back when I worked in France my winemaker taught me about using all the tools that you had available to make a wine from start to finish. I basically likened this to colours for an artist painting a picture. I’ve developed that idea since then. I also like to think of Winemaking as art. With both photographers and painters. Some wines are like a photograph – expressing place and terroir as if you took a photo there and then. Indigenous ferments and minimal intervention. Some wines are like a painting – where the winemaker has used all of their colours to create something with their own personal touch or style. 

In 2015 I worked with Clayvers in Italy. The wine I made was interesting and I decided I wanted to use them again. There were none available in NZ so I am now working with Clayver to bring them in and I have some here for my 2021 vintage”. – Brad Frederickson, Winemaker