There has been a lot of interest surrounding our Natural Wine project so I thought I would put together a quick blog to update everyone regarding the 2010 wine. We had another fantastic year in the Barossa Valley culminating in picture perfect ripening during April. I will add a full vintage report once I catch up on sleep and stop celebrating the end of vintage!
The bush vine Grenache that we grow for the Natural wine is located in Marananga in front of Dave’s house. It was not affected by the heatwave in November which resulted in many of our Grenache vineyards losing anywhere up to 70% of their crops. The fruit was handpicked on the 7th of April and brought into our Old Winery at Marananga where it was destemmed into two concrete vats. The fruit was gently plunged twice daily until the first sign of fermentation began, which was on the fifth day post picking. Once we were certain that the wine was fermenting we started to pump it over. This involved pumping the juice from a valve at the bottom of the fermenter and splashing it over the skins. After the first two days the ferment became quite vigorous and there was some noticeable reductive aromas produced by the wild yeast. I spent about half a day with one of our international cellar hands, playing with the wine and ‘splashing’ it to not only remove the reductive charaters (a strong rotten egg smell) but to also assist the yeast so that it was not struggling so much. We completely drained all of the fermenting juice off the skins and splashed the juice into a large vat with the assistance of a racking plate to ‘fan’ it. This method was very successful and some wonderful, clean and lifted aromatics began to show themselves in the wine. Most of the time we will add DAP or another nutrient to the wine to stop the reductive aromas developing. I guess this shows that with a bit of hard work and time that you don’t necessarily need to add these extra bits and pieces.
After another 5 days the ferment was at just over 1 beaume and I decided to press it off skins. This was done through a basket press, and the wine was splashed again into a stainless steel tank. The fermenting juice went completely dry on the 24th of April. We are currently waiting for it to finish malo-lactic fermentation, although with the cold weather now settling in, this process will take a while.
Once some of the solids settled from the wine, the vibrant, fresh and pure aromas of Grenache began to appear. I love drinking natural wines because they are so close to what I am used to drinking – unfinished, raw and ‘uncut’ versions of the wines that most people are used to seeing in bottles. As a winemaker I am exposed to all of the imperfections and volatility of wine as it is made and aged, and this is what I love about my job. Natural wines are a great expression of terroir and the vineyards from which they are made, and although they are not for everyone, I certainly love sipping on something fizzy and slightly cloudy any night of the week.
Cheers Craig Isbel