Hello my dear friends, it’s been a while. 2020 was a tough year for us all, and definitely testing for me. But have I given up on wine? Definitely not – far from it!
One silver lining of 2020 was that it turned out to be a great vintage, with a relatively mild spring and a moderate summer which allowed the grapes to ripen slowly and fully, developing beautiful floral and fruit aromas while keeping enough acidity to create a crisp sparkling.
I’ll be honest, a Barossa old vine Grenache was never going to be a tough sell for me. So it when it came to this one made with 130 year-old vines by a Barossa legend, it was a no-brainer.
Another special wine smuggled all the way back to the UK from the Granite Belt is the Ravens Croft 2019 Pinotage. With only 8 out of about 6,000 vineyards growing Pinotage in Australia, this has to be one of the rarer Strangebirds (alternative varieties) seen in the Granite Belt.
We may be familiar with white or rosé sparkling Pinot Noir, but how often do you see a red sparkling Pinot Noir? This Traditional method red Sekt from Scloss Vaux is made from Pinot Noir in the well respected (albeit somewhat unfortunately named) VDP village in the Rheingau and aged on lees for 3.5 years.
We all know how a cork comes out of your favourite bottle of bubbles, but did you know how it got in there? Me neither until recently. There are several ways that sparkling wine is bottled (another article soon!), but one of the most interesting is the Traditional Method, used to make Champagne and of course English Sparkling.
Here, the wine goes through a second fermentation after the initial wine is made to produce the creamy bubbles that we enjoy. Once this is done (which could take months or several years!), the dead yeast is expelled and the bottle topped with a corked, thorugh a process known as “Disgorging” or dégorgement. Let’s look at how this is done.
Corks look completely different before they are bottled. They take take their recognisable shape by being tightly squeezed and pressed into the bottle, to hold the immense pressure behind it in the bottle.
Traditional method (Champagne) bottles arrive in large palettes upside down after their second fermentation.
Being upside down allows the yeast lees to settle at the neck of the bottle, allowing it to be removed. Note the crown cap!
The cap is popped out, and a little wine along with the yeast is expelled (explosively!). Many choose to freeze the neck of the bottle to slow this process down, but we like to do things the hard way!
The “dosage” (or liqueur d’expédition) containing sugar, wine and sulphites (preservative) is added. This also gives the final sweetness of the wine.
Bottles are then topped up with the same wine to make it back to 750ml. Note that on standard Champagne bottles this is 72mm from the top of the bottle.
A cork is placed in a press which squeezes it to the width of the neck of the bottle, so it can be inserted.
This is the bottle after the press has squeezed the cork into it. As tight as it looks, it won’t stay for very long due to to the immense pressure in the bottle. It needs to be held in place!
The wire cage (or muselet) is pressed on and twisted tight around the neck…
…like so. And we’re done!
The bottle is then foiled and labelled at a later stage before going out the door.
Of course this rather laborious process is largely automated nowadays with high tech doodads and whizbangs but the principles and actions are still the same. However, this is still done by hand by a number of smaller producers!
An absolute honour to hang out all day with Brad Rowe from Boireann Winery. You see, Brad’s got some pretty big shoes to fill, as he’s taken over as winemaker from the original owner, Peter Stark since his retirement in 2017.
Today we’re back in the Granite Belt with Tobin Wines and their new 2018 Elliot Reserve Merlot. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this one progress from barrel to bottle over the last 18 months, and a beautiful end result.
One of France’s newest wine regions, the Alsace was granted AOC status only in 1962, due to its rich in geopolitical history. The region borders on Germany along the Rhine River, and changed hands between Germany and France several times over the past few centuries.
Really excited about getting into this Grüner Veltliner, one of the Granite Belt’s newest alternative varieties, or “Strangebirds” as they call them here. Once thought to be Riesling’s poorer sibling, Grüner tops many restaurant lists being a very food friendly wine. So Queensland restaurants now have no excuse not to stock local. It’s also got an umlaut in its name, so it’s also instantly cool.
Adrian Tobin is one of the many I see who epitomise Granite Belt wine country. Easy going, loves a friendly chin-wag and nuts about what he does. Passion over profits and hectolitres, he crafts with meticulous detail, eagle-eyed and in tune with his vines, the terroir, the weather…all for only couple of precious barrels.