Évoque

Price: $150 per bottle

Fermented in stainless steel open-top fermenters, with indigenous and selected yeasts. Extended maceration for extraction. Punched down up to 4 times per day. Gentle basket pressing and transferred into mostly new French oak for 12 months months maturation. 4 rackings during élevage. No fining.

Scotch fillet with pan jus, Confit duck legs, Truffle oil pasta and mushrooms, Braised short ribs, Hard cheese

Warm and dry conditions in early spring gave a healthy fruit-set. Late December rains replenished much needed moisture and were followed by a period of sunny dry weather. The 2014 growing season delivered 19% below average rainfall, allowing selective harvests at optimum ripeness and delivering wines with complexity and depth of flavour.

Price: $130 per bottle

Fermented in stainless steel open-top fermenters, with indigenous and selected yeasts. Extended maceration for extraction. Punched down up to 4 times per day. Gentle basket pressing and transferred into mostly new French oak for 12 months months maturation. 4 rackings during élevage. No fining.

Scotch fillet with pan jus, Confit duck legs, Truffle oil pasta and mushrooms, Braised short ribs, Hard cheese

A wet winter gave way to a calm, dry spring and resultant great fruit-set. This enabled us to scupt the vines to our design, every bunch manicured swinging freely in its own bit of premium real estate. Temperatures started off a bit cool but by December were well above average. January was one of the hottest and driest on record with 25 days above 30C and only 12mm of rain for the month. This set the scene for small berries with great concentration. February saw these extremes return to more normal levels with the warm dry conditions continuing through the all important ripening period becoming more autumn like around the 10th April. The resulting wines are as expected, very ripe, deeply concentrated and exquisitely balanced.

Price: $130 per bottle

Fermented in stainless steel open-top fermenters, with indigenous and selected yeasts. Extended maceration for extraction. Punched down up to 4 times per day. Air pulses. Gentle basket pressing and transferred into mostly new French oak for 12 months months maturation. 4 rackings during élevage. No fining.

Scotch fillet with pan jus, Confit duck legs, Truffle oil pasta and mushrooms, Braised short ribs, Hard cheese

A dry winter made pruning enjoyable and as such we were finished in record time. Late August brought with it a wet spell which replenished ground moisture prior to the season. Budburst was nearly 2 weeks ahead of normal. A settled spring brought with it a good fruit set, the odd Southwesterly kept the crop loads in check. Dry warm weather through to mid January set us up with some very healthy fruit. The season did a bit of an about face in February and turned wetter and cooler than we are used to. The majority of the work had already been done as we guided the crop to harvest by strategically hanging out individual parcels to gain optimum ripeness. The resultant wines are rich and plush with great presence and length.

Price: $130 per bottle

Fermented in stainless steel open-top fermenters with indigenous and selected yeasts. Punched down and air-pulsed up to four times per day, followed by an extended maceration. Gently basket pressed and transferred into mostly new French oak for twelve months maturation. Three rackings during élevage. No fining

Roast quail with brown butter and cherry mostarda, wild mushroom tart, filet mignon with sauce Bordelaise, Havarti and Fontina cheeses.

An early spring with warmer than average temperatures brought us a very even bud burst and good fruit set. A series of northerly storms brought above average rainfall and high humidity, creating plenty of challenges in the vineyards, however the overall heat summation was well above our yearly average providing ripe and concentrated fruit.

Price: $85 per bottle

The berries were gently split to increase the surface of skins in contact with the juice. Separated in small parcels, cold soaked and fermented in stainless vessels and concrete eggs with indigenous and selected yeasts and bacteria, to carefully control temperature and bouquet development. The wine was then macerated until an equilibrium was achieved and then gently pressed. The élevage was brilliant in French oak barrels for eighteen months. The finished wine was bottled under premium cork without fining, to enhance mouthfeel while promising ageing potential.

Scotch fillet with Roquefort butter, Slow-roasted Turkish lamb leg with pomegranate molasses, Pan-seared gnocchi with brown butter and sage, Roasted brussels sprouts with raisins and capers, Grana Padano and Manchego cheeses.

A warm settled spring provided the backdrop for a very hot and dry summer, setting us up for another promising vintage. Twenty-four days over 30 degrees celsius during the growing season, and a maximum average temperature of 28.6 through December and January gave us the heat summation to advance ripening nicely. Veraison was very compressed, and passed through in around two weeks instead of the usual four. February brought rain, but due to the constant and meticulous work of our vineyard team the fruit was in great shape. Continuous rounds of canopy detailing kept the fruit hanging freely and quick drying. All of this work paid off as March brought drier conditions and harvest approached. Selectively picking when the fruit reached optimum condition and many small batch ferments allowed individual attention and precision in the winery. The resultant wines, like the vintage, are filled with tension and poise. Supple and long, they will age well and deliver an ever-evolving experience over many years.

Price: $130 per bottle

The bunches were manually sorted, high-frequency de-stemmed and only the best berries then were gently split using centrifugal force, without crushing them, leaving the seeds intact and the berries fully opened, significantly increasing the contact area between juice and skin. This process combined with selected enzymes and cold soaking in stainless steel tanks resulted in optimum extraction of polyphenolic compounds and flavour precursors contained in the cells under the skin cuticles. The musts were then divided into different portions by gravity, some batches underwent a wild fermentation, some were sequentially inoculated with several selected strains of yeast and bacteria and some were inoculated with our house strains. The fermenters were hand-plunged up to 4 times a day. Some batches received air pulses. After an extended maceration, they were very slowly vertical basket pressed and transferred to French oak from selected tonnelleries for 12 months of elevage. The wine was racked several times, unfined and all components graded and assembled before blending and bottling.

Scotch fillet with pan jus, Confit duck legs, Truffle oil pasta and mushrooms, Braised short ribs, Hard cheese

Warm settled weather in spring provided an early bud burst and an early compressed flowering and resultant fruitiest. Canopies were meticulously nurtured with laterals thinned by hand. After fruit-set we followed up by detailed leaf removal around the fruit zone allowing the fruit to make the most of the abundant sunshine. December and January were some of the driest months on record assisting veraison to begin at least 10 days earlier than usual. There was a meagre 243mm of rainfall in the growing season, the driest in 10 years. This coupled with warm summer days, cool nights and light maritime breezes helped to provide wines which are rich, ripe, opulent yet refined.

Price: $130 per bottle

The berries were gently split to increase the surface of the skins in contact with the juice. Fermented in small stainless vessels and concrete eggs, with indigenous and selected yeasts and bacteria, to carefully control temperature and bouquet development. The wine was then macerated until an equilibrium was achieved and then gently pressed. The élevage was brilliant in special French oak barrels for eighteen months. The finished wine was bottled under premium cork with minimal filtration to preserve all that purity while promising ageing potential.

Roast quail with brown butter and cherry mostarda, wild mushroom tart, filet mignon with sauce Bordelaise, Havarti and Fontina cheeses.

Spring heralded very early this year around the end of August and mild sunny days followed. This encouraged a very early bud burst and early season growth. Flowering was understandably early in the increasingly warm days that followed. The driest October was followed by one of the wettest Novembers. This was a great benefit however as the vineyard was disease free and enabled great berry cell division and resulting development. Warmer than average pre-flowering to flowering period gave us fruitset 2 weeks ahead of usual. The dry warm weather continued, keeping ripening ahead of schedule. This allowed the fruit to fully develop in the late summer sun attaining perfect ripeness in flavour, tannin and sugar, acid balance. The fruit at harvest was pristine, permitting our small crew to harvest individual parcels in optimum condition. 2021 was another one for the record books!