In the morning mist of South Australia’s coastline, locals say, “The sea’s freshness lingers in the salty breeze.” Our story began with a winemaker’s “greed”: growing up by the sea, she watched her grandfather cast nets as silver fish leapt, her grandmother dry seaweed as salt crystallized, and fishermen return at dawn with shrimp and crabs still glistening with night dew. “I want a wine that captures that ‘just-caught’ freshness to pair with home-cooked steamed fish or blanched shrimp,” she thought.
In 2018, she returned to South Australia’s coastal white wine region, driven by this dream. Here, ocean winds and Mediterranean climates nurture grapes perfectly—but she refused an ordinary “seaside wine.” “I want the wine to tell the sea’s story, not just borrow its name,” she said. Then, one day, she found her inspiration: a red starfish on the reef at low tide. Its coral-kissed color and glistening tentacles felt like the ocean frozen in time.
“That’s it,” she realized. “Starfish are 500-million-year-old marine ‘living fossils’—they embody the sea’s raw vitality. They should be the soul of this wine.” Thus, the label “Red Starfish” was born: a minimalist starfish outline, gradient gem-red, edged with wave patterns, as if stretching its tentacles on the ocean floor.
The wine’s freshness is her “stolen” taste of the sea: made from South Australian Semillon and Riesling, picked at dawn with morning dew to preserve bright acidity (like the sweetness of freshly shelled shrimp); fermented at low temperatures for 7 days, then aged for 3 months in 30% new French oak to add roundness (like the richness of a mother’s fish soup).
“Drinking this with steamed fish elevates the seafood’s freshness; pairing it with blanched shrimp cuts through the dish’s lightness—this is South Australia’s ‘home-cooked freshness code,’” she says. Today, her cellar sits by the water, where she watches fishermen set sail and seagulls glide over the label’s red starfish—a silent conversation with the ocean.
Red Starfish is more than a wine. It is the breath of South Australia’s sea, a bridge between the ocean’s raw beauty and the warmth of home. When you raise your glass, you taste not just grapes, but the wind, the waves, and the magic of freshness connecting two lands.
