Ihana Wine is a boutique brand launched by Finnish Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas in partnership with sixth generation McLaren Vale company Oliver’s Taranga.
A ten-time race winner currently driving for the Kick Sauber F1 team, Valtteri shares with us his longstanding passion for wine, and specifically South Australian shiraz, which has been crystallised through his relationship with South Australian Tiffany Cromwell, the professional cyclist.
Listen in as Valtteri opens up about the blending process, collaborating with Oliver’s Taranga winemaker Corrina Wright, and how he balances his interests in wine, coffee and gin with the demands of the F1 season.
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We find out what he thinks of the DR3 wines created by Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, who we had on the show in early 2023.
Later on this episode I talk again with Corrina who gives her perspective on one of the more unlikely celebrity drinks partnerships that I’ve been able to share with you on the Drinks Adventures podcast.
More:
Daniel Ricciardo on his DR3 X St Hugo Wines project
The Australian Ark: Andrew Caillard MW on his wine opus
Lark Whisky spreads its wings under new CEO Satya Sharma
Valterri Bottas and Corrina Wright of Ihana Wine: Full transcript
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Is it 6pm for you?
JAMES ATKINSON: It’s 6pm. I’m just actually enjoying a beer, before I go home to the family.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, I’m still on the coffee. It’s 10am, so.
JAMES ATKINSON: Nice one. You’re currently in Monaco at the moment?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yes. I got home last night, so we were actually still after Japan. We were testing for two days, and then yesterday I was in the simulator in Switzerland at the factory, got home, so my head is a bit all over the place, you know.
JAMES ATKINSON: I bet. And you must be setting off for China before too long, I would imagine.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, I’m going there on Monday, so at least get a weekend at home.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah. Well, thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us in the middle of the season, which, I’m sure, you know, you have many responsibilities and, commitments. Look, I thought it’d be really interesting just to kind of go back and hear a little bit about, you know, your first experiences of wine.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah. When I turned 18, I discovered wines. And the nice thing about Finland is, because it is not a wine country, you know, the wines can’t really survive the harsh winters. So, it means in the alcohol shops, which are controlled by the Finnish Government, it’s a bit of a monopoly, really. There’s one shop that you can buy anything stronger than 5.5% alcohol, but they have a worldwide selection of wines. So then I just started, at home or having dinner with family or friends, trying different kind of wines. And obviously, the more you try from different countries, you get to just learn a bit more. And I just got really interested about the complexity of wine, like how much actually goes into it.
JAMES ATKINSON: It sounds quite sophisticated for a young guy. A lot of people don’t kind of discover wines until they’re a little bit older than having just reached drinking age, you know?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, yeah, I would agree, yeah. Ah, I was definitely, compared to some of my mates, I was an outlier in the sense that, yeah, sometimes I would just enjoy really nice one glass of red wine with a meal versus they would probably just go always for beer.
JAMES ATKINSON: And there weren’t any particular people who influenced you in your family or whatever to develop, this interest?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: I wouldn’t say so. I mean, I think, yeah, wine was always normal for us at home, but no, I think it was me. And, yeah, discovering how interesting the world of wine was. And then I tried to learn more, watching documentaries, reading a bit about wine and stuff like that, and then obviously when I started to travel more, because of racing, I got the chance to visit different countries, try different stuff. And now it has come to the point that almost all the holidays that I have happen to be in the wine regions.
Exploring wine with partner Tiffany Cromwell
JAMES ATKINSON: Yep. And maybe talk to me about what you enjoy drinking and some of the wine destinations that you’ve been able to visit.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, my favourite is definitely South Australia.
JAMES ATKINSON: Well, we like to hear that here, Valtteri.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah. But honestly, it’s hard to get that kind of stuff anywhere else. And the quality, the consistency is so nice and there’s so many still hidden gems, let’s say. But I really got into Aussie wines well, already when I was quite a bit younger, but then when I started travelling for the first time for the Melbourne Grand Prix, I managed to try some stuff and then obviously with my partner Tiffany, who’s from Adelaide, then she took me to many different places around South Australia, and I discovered that. But yeah, South Aussies, I do like some Californian cabernets. South America I do enjoy a lot. I like Chile, Argentina. And from Europe, I would probably go for Italy instead of France.
JAMES ATKINSON: More about red wines, I assume?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Definitely more about red wines.
Meeting Corrina Wright and the Oliver’s Taranga team
JAMES ATKINSON: Well, talk to me about the Ihana Wine project. When did you first meet Corrina and the Oliver’s Taranga team? And how did this conversation unfold?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, now it’s a bit more than a year ago I was having my usual winter break, so summer break in Australia and, yeah, it came to the point, year by year visiting there that I really wanted to do something with some local winery, somehow get involved, get my hands dirty and try and create something that I can be influencing how the wine is going to be. So then actually it was Tiffany’s mum knew a person from work whose wife lived at the winery of Oliver’s Taranga and that was Brioni. So, yeah, Corinna’s sister. I managed to get a contact and called them, ‘could I visit? I would like to try some of the wines’. Went there and I was like, ‘wow’. I’d never actually, before that, heard about the winery. Their stuff was so good and they’re super nice people. It’s still a 6th generation family-owned winery in McLaren Vale and, yeah, then I started asking questions that could we do something? It felt like they were a little bit protective initially because it is a really united family business and they’ve never done collaborations with, other people really like this. So eventually we managed to get in terms, they trusted that, yeah, I can be a person, they want to do something and, then we did it. So started immediately working for the Edition One of Ihana Wine. I managed to get the blend together during that same trip. I think I had like a month in Australia at that time. I managed to do some picking as well, before the Melbourne Grand Prix the previous year. Yeah, I mean, it almost just like happened. And, I felt like it was meant to be.
JAMES ATKINSON: What was your vision for the project? You know, do you have sort of modest ambitions for it in terms of it’s just a bit of fun or is it sort of like, are you kind of thinking beyond your racing career and looking to establish some business interests in areas that you’re passionate about for life beyond racing?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: For me it’s just passion, really. Like I said earlier, it came to the point for me that I knew I had to do something. I wanted to get somehow my own kind of blend out there and that way also show my passion for wine and South Australian wine. But yeah, it is a limited production. Edition One and Edition Two will be 5000 bottles each. So it’s not like mass production. So it’s quite small amounts in the end, if you’re talking about McLaren Vale. And, yeah, for now, the plan is to keep it that way, keep it as a passion and a new thing that I can be involved as much as I have time to for the edition and let’s see in the future. But, for now, it’s limited edition and really just passion.
JAMES ATKINSON: So how did you go about that blending process for that first wine release, which I think is still available now? There’s still some of it left.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: There’s still a little bit left. Not so much. So if you’re interested, be quick. And like I said, we’re already working on the Edition Two. And, yeah, the blending process was really interesting, the first time for me doing a proper blending session with so many options, from different blocks, different type of shiraz. And, initially I was almost a little bit confused because I had like, twelve or something like this samples, and I loved all of them, but also I could figure out that they were all a bit different. So eventually we got there, obviously with the help of Corrina. Because, you know, for me, trying to vision how something is going to evolve, how something is going to taste in months to come or then years to come, then that’s why I needed her help. And, yeah, I tried lots of different things and managed to find a blend that obviously, I think is perfect because I made it.
JAMES ATKINSON: And look, it really sounds like you and Corrina have really kind of hit it off and sort of developed a great friendship. What’s it been like working with her?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: It’s been great. Like, I think she’s really inspirational woman and really good at what she does. she’s really dedicating her life for the wine and it’s hard work. Like, I didn’t actually realise how hard work it is to be a winemaker. You need to be on top of your game all the time, and especially when it comes to, you know, harvesting time and with timing and, yeah, you need to be really good at many different things. So it’s been awesome, and their whole family has been great. So I really, really enjoyed it. And, yeah, we’ve become good friends.
JAMES ATKINSON: I really like the packaging and I think it’s very distinctive and very obviously very different to Oliver’s Taranga and quite different to a lot of Australian wineries generally. Is that an expression of who you are and, you know, what was your involvement in that process?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: We, of course, had some people helping us with ideas, but then when we saw the first sketches after all the feedback that I gave, like how I would like the product to look, it was actually quite straightforward. We had some really talented people working on the design and how it would look, so in the end, that was quite straightforward. And yeah, really happy how it looks. And, I think the look of the bottle and the packaging represents the wine very nicely. Like, it is really high quality Shiraz from McLaren Vale, but also quite elegant, actually, in terms of the taste profile.
JAMES ATKINSON: And what does the future hold in terms of the year? You mentioned that you’re already looking at the second release. And where are these products going to be available? Do they make it over to Finland and outside Australia generally?
Ihana Wine means ‘wonderful’ in Finnish
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yep. So we did finish the blend already for Edition Two, but, we’re going to launch it later this year. And, yeah, for the edition one, we had initially just Australia and the USA, more or less 50/50. But then Finland showed so much interest, maybe because also the name ‘Ihana’ meaning ‘wonderful’ in Finnish. They showed great interest. So we managed to get it to Finland, to some places, as well as these Tallink Silja cruise ships that go between Finland and Sweden and Estonia. So that was it for Edition One and Edition Two. Trying to probably spread it a bit more. But, yeah, Australia needs to be the number one because it’s made there for sure. When I get some to Finland, us, they seem interested and we’re still looking for other opportunities.
JAMES ATKINSON: And will you expand beyond Shiraz, and look at other grape varieties?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: For now, sticking with Shiraz, I really enjoy a lot the shiraz that they produce at Oliver’s Taranga. So for now, that’s going to be the one.
JAMES ATKINSON: And so you’ve got a lot of business interests now. Alongside the wine, there’s also the gin, and I think there’s a coffee venture as well. How do you kind of balance all this stuff with the racing career? It must be very busy.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, it’s a good question and I definitely need to try and manage my time. I am quite busy, that’s for sure, only just with the racing. We have 24 races around the world, plus the marketing, plus testing, plus simulator stuff. So that’s already a lot. But I really find that, you know, all the things that I’m involved with have always has been like, passion first. Like, yeah, coffee is a big passion for me, gin is a big passion for me and my partner. And the latest thing being the wine. I almost feel like working on these things gives me energy versus takes my energy, you know, so it’s just fun. Things to do and when you have passion for something, it really doesn’t feel like work. Yeah, of course, I need help as well. So I’ve got people helping with all these different things, and I can also manage my time consumption depending on the point of the racing season we are in, or etcetera. Everything is rolling. Well, actually, I’ve got no issues with time at the moment and it gives me lots of good energy working on these things.
Tasting Daniel Ricciardo’s DR3 Wines
JAMES ATKINSON: Our own Daniel Ricciardo has his own wine brand as well. I was wondering if you’d managed to taste that one.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: I have tried it. It’s actually nice. Yeah, I can and he’s tried mine.
JAMES ATKINSON: Oh, good.
JAMES ATKINSON: Did you do that together?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: No, I just gave him a bottle last year. But, yeah, I think we need to do some kind of competition.
JAMES ATKINSON: There needs to be a blind tasting. I mean, you’re both, by nature of your jobs, extremely competitive guys.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea. We definitely need to try and organize that. But yeah, he’s a big wine guy as well. He really enjoys it. And obviously his product is a bit bigger, let’s say, in terms of the quantities and the marketing etcetera. And mine is smaller amounts and a bit different style. But yeah, good on him.
JAMES ATKINSON: Well, that’s right. I mean, he took a very different approach to you in that I, suppose working with a brand that’s multinationally-owned, and you’ve gone with a family company in McLaren Vale. There’s advantages and disadvantages of both approaches for you. Was it important that it was kind of a family-owned winery that, you know, sharing similar values and that type of thing?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: I prefer that, honestly, for me. And like I said, I never, never had a goal at this point that I would like to produce hundreds of thousands of bottles. So, yeah, for me, it’s, just such a nice family to work with and yeah, 5000 bottles is not a lot, but I feel like it is enough to share our passion to the world. So with that, I’m happy. And, yeah, obviously making my own blend, the target is not to get millions out of it. So, yeah, I think my day job covers my salary, so I can rather focus on the passion side of things.
JAMES ATKINSON: I’d say it probably does. And, is there much of an opportunity for wine appreciation throughout the year when you, obviously you’re kind of travelling to some of the best places in the world to be able to enjoy wine at certain times, but it’s such a gruelling, demanding schedule that you have. So do you kind of get the chance to enjoy wine around the F1 schedule?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: I do. We do have weeks off. Not that many, but we do. And, sometimes between the races I would stay locally or stay in the region. But then, back end of the season when we had races in like Mexico and Brazil, managed to squeezing a week in Mendoza, Argentina. This year, actually, after the Miami Grand Prix, I’m staying in the US for a week or so and I’m going to explore a bit more of California. So, you know, trips like that I can find on the calendar that actually save me extra travelling, staying in the region, plus I get more education in wine. So, yeah, I’ll find the time. And it’s obviously all about balance and yeah, the consumption of wine needs to be a bit lower in the racing season than off season, but that’s fine.
JAMES ATKINSON: Do you have dreams of purchasing vineyards or anything along those lines?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: There’s always dreams. Yeah, every now and then I’ve been looking what’s out there in South Australia in terms of land or wineries and stuff. But, at the moment I’m still a bit too busy to jump into a big thing like that. So, never say never. There’s always dreams.
How Kick Sauber F1 team is going in 2024
JAMES ATKINSON: And before we let you go, how are you feeling about the F1 season so far and thoughts on going into the China event?
VALTERRI BOTTAS: It’s been challenging season for us so far. We definitely improved the car from the first race. We’ve been able to bring upgrades and the pace has been getting better, but we’ve had quite a lot of issues with pit stops, which, has definitely cost us some points, I think. A good example was in Melbourne, actually. The race was going quite okay, but then we had an issue at the stop, so still working on that side. And once we can get those fixed, then we can, I think, better see the potential. But, I have to say now, in F1, getting into the top ten is quite tricky. It seems to be like it is pretty set in terms of the order of teams that covers the top ten. And then we are there kind of battling for those last one or two points at the moment. So there’s still a bit of performance gaps between teams, but a long way to go and yeah, looking forward to China, which is actually my teammate’s home Grand Prix for the very first time. So it should be pretty big for our team, I think.
JAMES ATKINSON: Wonderful. Well, Valtteri, congratulations on the wines and best of luck going into the China Grand Prix and, you know, for the rest of the season.
VALTERRI BOTTAS: Thank you, mate.
JAMES ATKINSON: That was Valtteri Bottas and his collaborator on the Ihana Wine project is Corrina Wright, whose family winemaking history spans more than 180 years.
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, it’s crazy. You know, if you told me a few years ago that I’d be heading over to the Austin Grand Prix to, launch a wine with a Formula One player… Not player, sorry, driver. See, this is how green I am. I would have laughed in your face, but obviously Valtteri’s girlfriend Tiffany is South Australian, so they come back here fairly regularly and it just happens that her mum actually works with my cousin Brioni’s husband. So anyways, there’s a bit of a connection there. He and Tiffany have always been super interested in wine, going to wine regions wherever he goes, and he really loves South Australian wine. And so her mum suggested that they come and visit us, asked us if they could visit. Everyone got very excited and we put a 77 on our golf buggy and drove them around the vineyard. But we thought that would sort of be the end of it. But he kept on coming back and kept on tasting more and kept on wanting to learn more about us and the winery and the wines and, then eventually asked if we’d be interested in doing collaboration wine with him.
JAMES ATKINSON: So, yeah, as you’d know, these celebrity wine collaborations often tend to be with the multinationals. So earlier this year I interviewed Alan Border about the one that he did with Sanguine Estate in Heathcote. And so I think it’s really cool to see that more boutique wineries are getting these opportunities as well.
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, for sure. I mean, we weren’t out hunting for a celebrity endorsement or anything like that, it wasn’t even on our radar. I think the attraction came because, you know, he’s just a great guy and we really got on well. We’re calling him now our ‘cousin from the north’. He knew what he was talking about in terms of tasting, like his palate. He really wanted to be involved. You know, he wasn’t after whatever those types of payments are to be a brand ambassador or anything like that. He really wants to do things that he loves.
JAMES ATKINSON: So tell me what his involvement has been with putting the wine together and packaging it. And so when did that process actually begin?
CORRINA WRIGHT: Basically first visits were last year, sort of during December, January type of time. And so yeah, we started talking about it and thought, yep, let’s. Okay, we’re going to do something. And he was obviously back for the Grand Prix in Melbourne, which was vintage time for us. So he came over and spent three days staying with us in McLaren Vale and was in the vineyard and was in the winery with the ‘23 vintage. Also we got out all of our batches of ‘22 shiraz which, our vineyard is actually quite big. So we’ve got lots of different batches of Shiraz that I make separately. And we did a bit of a blending session. So he basically pulled together the blend of the ‘22 with a bit of support from me. Meanwhile, we worked on labelling altogether. ‘Ihana’ is the name that we went with because it’s the first thing that came into his mind when he tasted our wines. And it means ‘wonderful’, ‘lovely’ in Finnish.
JAMES ATKINSON: Some pretty beautiful and quite distinctive packaging and very, very different to Oliver’s Taranga.
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, it is, yeah. So we wanted to obviously have it be a standalone wine, standalone brand. We weren’t sort of after chasing just the Oliver’s Taranga people. It’s a pretty small batch as well. We worked with David Byerlee from Byerlee Design. He’s a graphic designer, works with us with our labels as well. He’s also a massive Formula One fan of course. So, the other thing that Valteri didn’t really want was it to be, you know, super Formula One looking. I think that this something that he wants to live on after his Formula One career. So basically David came up with the idea of the two hemispheres. So then the silver on the top of the label is sort of the cold north of Finland. And then the bronze or copper on the bottom of the label is Australia, the sort of drier, warmer continent. And then the lines sort of represent rows and vines or roads, which is Valtteri, I suppose. So, yeah, that’s how it all sort of came together.
JAMES ATKINSON: And tell me about the finished wine. Stylistically, is it quite different to the Oliver’s Taranga kind of house style?
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, it is. I mean it’s obviously it’s come from our vineyard still and it’s still come from the blocks that we have access to. But he wanted probably a slightly larger expression, but also he found in one of the blocks, which is a younger block of vines, still 10 to 12 years old, but it had a beautiful nose that reminded him of, bilberries in, Finland, which is their sort of local blueberry. So he wanted to add a bit of that to the nose, but still have that generosity through the palate. So it ended up being two different blocks that he blended and a little bit of the bilberry lift on the nose and then more structure and everything from our 106 block. So, yeah.
JAMES ATKINSON: And tell me about the experience of traveling to the Grand Prix. And have you sort of become a bit of a fan, off the back of that?
Watching Drive To Survive
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, we, definitely started watching Drive To Survive. My husband’s already been a fan for a long time, and my son. We’re not going to the US until the Austin Grand Prix, which is coming up in October. We’re doing a US release dinner. So people in Austin are buying tickets at the moment to come to dinner with us at Valtteri’s favourite steakhouse, which is called Perry’s in Austin, which has been pretty exciting. So my husband doesn’t usually like to come on wine trip things with me, but he was very happy to put his hand up and be a handbag on this trip. So myself and my cousin Sam, we’ve sort of been spearheading this project, we’ll both be going over. And his girlfriend also is a massive Formula One fan and has been for years. So the husband and his girlfriend decided that they would tag along as well.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah. And with it being sourced from the fruit in your own vineyards, is there kind of like a ceiling to how big this can possibly get? Or is there always ways of kind of increasing the scale if you decide to go down that path?
CORRINA WRIGHT: Yeah, well at the moment we only take about 40% of the fruit from our own vineyard, so, and we sell it to lots of other people, Penfolds and d’Arenberg and all sorts of others, locally. So we’re on a bit of a growth trajectory anyway. However, I’m sure there is a bit of a ceiling. We only made 5000 bottles, and it comes just in two-packs. We wanted to make sure that, we could share it out as much as possible. So 2500 people will be able to get their hands on it, but we’ll see where it goes. It’s a big adventure that we’re going on, not really putting any rules around it. Valtteri is very keen for it to continue into the future, so hopefully it’ll work. Yeah.
JAMES ATKINSON: And is there any talk of expanding to additional varieties or additional products?
CORRINA WRIGHT: You know, if you talk to him travelling, around the world, he goes to wine regions all over the world, but South Australian Shiraz is really what he loves. So I feel like, we might sit in that pocket for a little while, but maybe I’ll convince him onto Fiano and Grenache a bit later on. So we’ll see.
JAMES ATKINSON: Yeah, Grenache for sure. Fantastic, Corrina. Well congratulations on the Ihana Wine project, and I look forward to hearing more about it.
CORRINA WRIGHT: Thanks, James.
