Our story.

Many years ago, our Nonni (Nonnas + Nonnos) made wine. They took the Sangiovese grapevines of their region and planted them beneath the sunshine, in the fresh air and falling rain. They picked the grapes, put them in open barrels, stood on them to crush them - releasing their juices. They watched, occasionally used their hands to stir, giving the grapes their love and energy. Until the day arrived, when that specific mixture of grapes tasted just right. On this day they put the special juice into bottles. And they called it "San Selvaggio", the Wild Holy One. They used the special juice to celebrate, dance, and speak of their woes. This was the juice of humanity.

In 2015, Matt & Lentil Purbrick were operating a small organic vegetable and flower farm on Taungurung Country, one hour north of Naarm (which became, over time, the Grown & Gathered project) and making wine with local friends who lived and had a little abandoned vineyard just across Gaiyala (The Goulburn River) from them, for joy, love and freedom.

By 2017, Matt and Lentil had just published their first book, Grown and Gathered, on organic farming and foraging. They had also just made their first trip to Italy together, Matt's ancestral home, when their yearning to share the kind of good, natural farm wine they'd come to love and make intersected with an opportunity to help convert a 125-acre vineyard, owned by Matt's extended family, to certified Organic.

This vineyard also lay beside Gaiyala, this time near Toolamba on Yorta Yorta Country, just one hour north of Matt & Lentil's small organic farm, where they'd made those first natural wines. And in February of 2018, the first Minimum grapes were harvested: Chardonnay, Sangiovese, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. Three wines were conceived: one red, one white and one rosé. The Minimum Main Range was born. The wines felt somehow conservative though, controlled. They were 100% organic, but heavily influenced by some of the more 'experienced' winemakers in Matt's family. It was a new direction for Matt & Lentil, who were used to the pure and free wildness of their natural farm wines. But eager not to make a mistake on these much larger volumes, and working for the first time in an actual winery, they played it safe. In hindsight, though, something was missing in those first wines. The control had crushed their true spirit.

At the same time, Matt & Lentil were falling in love with Italy, and after the 2019 harvest, they moved their home to the southern island of Sardegna, vowing to return to Australia each year to make wine and continue Minimum. They'd bought a tiny house in a tiny village on Sardegna's wild west coast and a 1/3-acre home vineyard, or vignetto, overlooking the sea. That vineyard, and the resulting wines, like those first farm wines, became a driving influence and testing ground.

In 2019, as soon as their first little vignetto harvest was tucked into its damigiane, Matt returned to Australia to launch Minimum and check in on the 2019 wines produced earlier that year. A special volume of Sangiovese, made a little wilder (that they'd set aside), had elevated. It contained something more akin to what Matt & Lentil knew they were trying to create. Matt returned to Sardegna, elated at this discovery, and wrote the first iteration of The Minimum Manifesto. Lentil wrote the poem at the top of this page. A deeper vision for Minimum was emerging into focus.

In 2020, Matt & Lentil returned for the harvest just as COVID sent the world into lockdown. A two-month trip turned into eight months, isolated from everything they had come to call home. But there was a silver lining. It meant extra time in the cellar for Matt and his new sidekick, Mat Bate, who had reached out to write a story on Minimum and wanted more. That 2020 harvest changed everything about the wines Minimum would make. Inspired by that special 2019 Sangiovese, Lentil & Matt conceived the Short Runs range. To bring it to fruition, they bought all of the old small-scale winemaking gear from their friends Andrew & Kerry over the river. This included 'Bonnie', the basket press, used in that first 2015 harvest and which we still use to this day. They made their first Pét Nat (with only the barest idea of what they were doing) from skin-contact Chardonnay and very early-picked, hailstorm-damaged Sangiovese birthing the Hailstorm Special. They also made a skin-contact Sauv. Blanc and an early-picked, very light Syrah alongside more of that special ripe Sangiovese. With this space to play, the complete colourful energy that Minimum is now known for was able to emerge.

2020 brought in all the joy and turned up the music. We released that 2019 Sangiovese (dubbed 'San Selvaggio' from Lentil's poem) to critical acclaim, and the following year Matt was listed for the first time (again in 2023) in the Top-50 Young Winemakers in Australia by Young Gun of Wine for the 2020 'Colossus of Harry' Skin-contact Sauv. Blanc and 2020 'Alt' Syrah. We'd done away with any vestige of boomer, conservative blah, thrown out the idea of new oak and all of their other tricks. We wanted to make alive wine. Vibrant wine. Wine that spoke of the baking sun and of wildness. Wine that captured the energy of the harvest festa's that started it all. We grafted Fiano, Mataro and Grenache onto the vineyard, launched our online journal The Ⓣheorist, and never looked back.

In 2020, Matt had also made the first wines to be released under his zero sulphur, zero adds, sister label UN PO'. He has continued to make wine in Italy for this project, as well as for Minimum, almost every year since. Mat B bought into Minimum in 2022 and became more and more a part of the vision. Matt's friend, Leigh, joined the Minimum team for the 2022 and 2023 harvests. We all continued to walk the path towards less and less intervention, more and more expression and unbridled aliveness in our wines and in the vineyard.

In 2024, we made a new commitment to ourselves, to our collective futures, and to honouring the authenticity of our hearts. Now, in the tenth year of Matt honing the craft of taming and harnessing the energy required to make clean 100% natural wine (just organic grapes, wild fermented, without sulphur, without control) at scale, we cast off the final guylines and surrendered all Minimum production to the full joyful chaos. We committed all Minimum wines to being 100% natural from that point forward.

We fermented our 2024 wines in open-top tubs, in the open air (without walls), on a secret hillside (without power), making as many decisions as we could by taste and doing as much as we could with Matt & Mat's four hands. These 2024 wines are special, and they mark the start of a new chapter for us. They’re honest, and they’re incredibly alive. We've scaled back the size of what we do significantly. And the whole process made us very happy.

However, 2024 wasn't all joyful. It's a long story, but because Minimum has never owned its own vines, our grape source was always at risk. Matt's Dad actually began as a part of Minimum, but differences in ethos emerged early on, and Matt & Lentil bought him out by the end of 2020. In May 2024, after our most exciting and fulfilling vintage yet, we received the news we'd always dreaded. Matt's family had decided they didn't believe in organic farming anymore and would pull the Minimum vineyard out of the ground.

And they did.

So we (Lentil, Matt and Mat) took a year off production in 2025 to reconfigure, reset, and rest. But it was never going to be the end. It was an opportunity to lean into a new beginning. We have mourned and still grieve for the vines and thriving habitat that we have lost. But we feel honoured for having had the opportunity to convert that 125-acre vineyard into abundant health. Corporate attitudes have no place amongst that beauty and mystery, however privilege unfortunately does not always = wisdom.

We now have a new vineyard growing partner. She is awesome, and we can't wait to share more news about this. And much more. As we continue to flow through 2025 and onto the next, very new and exciting harvest. Until then, we hope you enjoy drinking the magic.