“The bouquet of this wine has the classic chorus of blueberry, overripe plums, violets, spice, gingerbread and mixed sweet flowers. The palate is soft, plump, creamy and rounded with dominant plums, almost blueberry confection and a note i always notice with every blend i have made – subtle sarsaparilla/cola on the finish with ‘loyal’ but gentle acid, refreshing but balanced that glides on the palate gently til the end like a Sentinel guard on watch …wine will last 12 years at least. Drink after 1 year for best results.
Vintage and Harvest: Growing conditions were fantastic, and the risk was marginal for most of the season, with only nuisance rain coming irregularly and after harvest, which I cheered on! Harvest went with mid-range crop levels and cool evenings, ensuring zesty acid for structure. In the end, sugar levels and acid levels were above average and on song. Tannins from the stems to seeds were ripe and realistic.
Winemaking: I tried to cold soak as long as possible, with at least 3 days of soaking before ferment. No destemming, foot treading gently so as not to crush every berry was easy and frankly ‘lazy’, and so the ferment was long and slow. The ferment was cool with only 2 days where the temperature spiked to 29 degrees, and hand plunging was vigorous for extraction of ripe skin, seed, and stem tannins right to semi-dry where pressing was then hard and long right to the barrel to complete fermentation, bubbling well and truly over winter till late Spring. For the last few years, I have been employing ELBA – Extra Long Barrel Aging on light lees for at least 3 years, for this harvest, I applied 4 years. The depth of complexity and concentration and rich smooth roundness on ‘big’ Baume fruit fermented on stems with wonderful results!”
Stuart Olsen, Eloquesta
