Vino Rosso 2024

The Wine:

Once again the Vino Rosso arrives to continue the humble story of this wine which is really to provide a bit of a guilty pleasure for you. Wonderful mixes of florals, fruit and spice but with a generous, soft structure and soft tannins, this wine was made for enjoyment. A unique blend of luscious, mouth-filling Malbec and rich, old vine Merlot, both from the Wilyabrup sub-region. 

The Vineyards:

The Merlot portion of the blend is from a very special old vineyard. One of the oldest and most historic in the entire Margaret River district, this Wilyabrup site displays all of the most sought after vineyard characteristics. Of particular note is that the vines are old – around 46 years old and un-irrigated, which leads to production of a Merlot wine with amazing depth and complexity. 

The Vintage:

Winemaking:

All of the grapes for this wine were handpicked into small 8kg crates and immediately transported back to the winery where they were gently de-stemmed and not crushed, directly into their small open fermentation vessels. This allowed the ferment to start with what were almost totally unburst, undamaged individual berries. The wines were fermented in their separate batches utilising indigenous yeasts unique to each vineyard site.

The must underwent a slow, steady ferment with gentle hand plunging twice each day. The individual batches spent from three weeks to five weeks on skins after which the fruit was basket pressed into French oak seasoned barriques , and was left to complete malolactic conversion in barrels utilizing the activity of indigenous bacteria and the right temperatures. The wine was left to mature for 20 months in barrel during which time it was racked via gravity one time and topped regularly. One day before bottling the wine was racked out of barrel to tank and was then bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Salutè

Robert Gherardi