White

Picked from our own Semillon vines planted in the early 1960's. All of our dessert wines are made the same way. We do not use Botrytis infected fruit or fortification in any of our dessert wines. After hand picking the grapes are placed into trays and semi dried.

This drying process highlights and intensifies natural flavours and aromas. Giving a very long clean and crisp finish combined with wonderful fruit.

Straw yellow in color, the aromas, intense and ample, recall yellow fruit, white flowers, and orange blossoms. Full in flavor and soft and savory, the finish and aftertaste recall the fruit first felt on the nose.

The grapes, hand-picked, were destemmed and then pressed. The must was chilled to a temperature of 8 deg C in order to assist in a natural settling of impurities. The must then went into temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks where it fermented at a maximum temperature of 15 deg C and, after the fermentattion, was held in stainless steel tanks at 10 deg C. The wine was then filtered and bottled.

The 2015 Sauvignon Blanc has great aromatic notes of passionfruit with a punchy herbaceousness. The palate is clean and crisp with a bright zippy finish. Great served alongside natural oysters. Or according to Anita, this is a great wine to have with fresh Crayfish (Southern Rock Lobster) served with a simple seafood sauce and white bread!

Inspired by the rich, luscious & mineral scented dry whites of the Rhône Valley the 2014 Steading Blanc is sourced entirely from the Descendant Vineyard on Roennfeldt Road. 

Fragrant aromas of acacia flowers, roasted nuts and buttered citrus are neatly balanced with underlying hints of bees wax, minerals, chalk and fino. 

The ripe, fleshy barrel fermented Viognier and Marsanne gives the palate extraordinary richness whilst the Roussanne contributes its more flinty and austere personality. The result is a seamless wine with a silken texture that can be enjoyed with anything from the sea, particularly with a rich crustacean based sauce. 

The story of Riesling in Australia is as old as the wine industry itself. Aficionados will remember the legendary “dry white hock style” wines from the 1960’s and 1970’s.

The greatest Rieslings of that era came from the revered ‘Florita’ vineyard—a seventy five acre block established one mile south of the Watervale township near Clare in the early 1960’s. Jim Barry’s sons purchased The Florita vineyard in 1986. Leo Buring first registered ‘The Florita’ trademark in 1946, and Mark, Peter and John were forced to wait, somewhat anxiously, until finally procuring it in 2004.

The 2015 ‘The Florita’ expresses a pale straw shade in the glass with a slight green tinge.

Tasting notes:

Opens with powerful floral aromas of rose water, lime citrus and hints of freshly cut Nashi pear. A wine of immense drive and purity. Tightly wound within snappy laser focused acidity and crisp lime juice fruit at its core. Shows the hallmarks of a youthful but restrained Florita with a promise of more to come. Pure lime fruit is dominant with a long citrusy finish.

Their Block wines are made from small, carefully selected parcels of the best old vine fruit from the Forest Hill Property including the original 1965 vines. Cane pruned and hand harvested, these special blocks are very low yielding due to age and relying only on natural rainfall. If the vintage proves to be challenging for a variety, they will not make a Block wine that season. The Block wines are powerful yet refined and elegant, and will reward cellaring.

Tasting notes:

Bright straw in colour with green hues. Lifted aromas of jasmine and lime blossom. The palate is zesty with fresh lime and slate. It has a steely structure that is well balanced by its natural acidity leading to a long and mineral finish.

Through the combination of innovative viticultural practices and unique ‘terroir’, this challenging and picturesque estate vineyard produces distinctive, balanced wines – beautifully structured and long on flavour.

Winemaking:

Heggies Vineyard Riesling grapes are picked in the cool of the night and swiftly transported to the winery. There is minimal handling of the fruit and only the free run juice is selected for the Heggies Vineyard Riesling 2015. The juice is fermented at cool temperatures using aromatic yeasts and blended early at the completion of fermentation. At Heggies Vineyard there are a number of blocks of Riesling available, so when the final blend is made there are a variety of options to ensure each vintage is of consistently excellent quality.

Vintage conditions:

Eden Valley had good rainfall from April to July but was quite dry for the spring and early summer months. These mild conditions allowed an early bud break and generous Riesling crops to set. Heggies vineyard has limited water availability so a down-pour in early January was welcome to freshen the grapes and carry them through to an early harvest.

Tasting notes:

The wine is a pale straw colour with a green tinge, showing fresh and alluring aromatics of citrus blossom and lemon zest.

The palate is fresh and crisp, showing white flower aromas and a lemon drop acidity progressing to a tight, Eden Valley Riesling finish.

Food Match:

Enjoy with freshly shucked oysters.

Every since planting Viognier, Torbreck has strived to make a wine with similar distinction and purity to those of Condrieu, which are amongst some of the greatest white wines he has tasted. With a beautiful freshness, the exotic aromatics of orange blossom, white peaches, jasmine flowers and smoke are tell tale signs of what lies beneath. Full bodied, the rich, opulent palate offers white truffles, ripe peaches, currants and fresh cream.

Only in exceptional vintages will we have the opportunity to produce a Viognier that displays distinctive varietal characteristics from the Descendant Vineyard. This wine was naturally fermented and aged for 9 months in 100% new French oak barriques.

Following continuous monitoring during the season, harvesting commenced in the cool of the morning on 4 March, the grapes were destemmed only to avoid any skin maceration, chilled to 10 C, drained & lightly pressed. Following this the juice was cold settled, assessed and subsequently racked then warmed to 15 C prior to inoculating with a selected yeast culture. This wine is made from free run & soft pressings juice only. Fermentation is initiated & maintained in stainless at a temperature of 13-16C, subject to the rate of fermentation and tasted twice daily during fermentation. Once fermented to the desired sugar level, this ferment was halted at 8.7g/l residual sugar by reduction in temperature, to achieve the desired sugar/acid balance. Following settling for approximately two weeks the wine was racked, chilled and sulphur adjusted, then left on light lees for four months. Tweaking of acid levels with Citric was only addressed following stabilisation, filtration & preparation for bottling.