Poppelvej, meaning “the street of poplars,”  is a Danish word referring to the name of the street where brothers Jens and Uffe Deichmann grew up. The original street sign, hand painted by their great-great-grandfather, hangs on the winery wall above the barrels thanks to a few too many glasses of wine one night in Denmark. This charming name is in stark contrast to the inky, self-deprecating humor that seems to underpin each label. If the Poppelvej wine lineup were a high school clique, they’d be the post-metal rock kids who stay up too late at night listening to Tool and reading Animal Farm. The names that adorn these wines are the likes of “Dead Ohio Sky,” “Vicissitudes of Life,” and “Zoonotic Spillover.”  The influence of the Led Zepplin and Tool eras is undeniable, but it doesn’t stop with the naming. Music is unquestionably the Deichmann brothers’ muse in the cellar, as each vintage’s wines becomes an embodiment of its harvest anthems.

The story goes that Uffe was working at a wine shop in Copenhagen and asked his boss to take six months off to go work harvest in South Australia. With three weeks to go before his flight home, he met who would become his wife, Nicole, at a music festival in Canberra. Needless to say, he missed that flight… After splitting their time between Denmark and Australia, Uffe and Nicole settled in McLaren Vale where Uffe would start Poppelvej in 2016.

Poppelvej’s wines are as raw as the music that inspires them. The grapes come from carefully chosen sustainably farmed sites in McLaren Vale and Adelaide Hills. The wines are vinified without additions (besides very minimal sulfur in some instances) in a little shed in McLaren Vale, and bottling occurs without fining or filtration. Their lineup leans red, but they have an exciting Viognier and a whole-bunch pressed Mourvèdre rosé that ferments in a concrete egg. These are honest wines that beautifully and purposefully mirror the spunky whims of their creators. Now more than a few years established, Poppelvej is finding its footing. The wines are a little more grown up, a little less dogmatically minimal intervention, and a little more rooted in place. This is a producer to watch.