We were in touch with the growers all of last week and finally got the call that the grapes were coming off on Saturday morning (huge thanks to Jess and Brian at Farmer and The Scientist for being so accommodating)!
We embarked on a quest, to what felt like the end of the earth, to collect our precious fruit. It certainly felt like an epic adventure for the ages, but in reality it was just to the other side of Heathcote and back.
We are really pleased with the quality of the fruit, which was destemmed and tipped into a fermenter as whole berries. The uncrushed fruit allows a degree of carbonic maceration (a type of fermentation that happens inside the berries) to occur, which often results in the lifted fruit and cinnamon spice flavours that we love.
We added a hefty dose of dry ice to hold back fermentation for a few days and let the colour extraction from the skins happen nice and slowly.
After 5 days, we opened up the fermenter and a wild ferment was just kicking off. We made the decision to allow the indigenous yeast to try and complete alcoholic fermentation, as wild ferments often add complexity to the finished wine.
The juice is scrumptious and showing great promise. First tasting notes are at the end of the video below. Enjoy!