Join us in store on Friday 7th of March for a free counter tasting of Eloquesta Wines with winemaker Stuart Olsen!
On pour: 2018 Reserve Sparkling NV, 2018 Winter Harvest Shiraz & 2018 Shiraz Petit Verdot
“Hi. I’m Stuart Olsen, wine maker and owner of Eloquesta Wines, Mudgee and Orange, NSW
I was drawn to wine making and had a passion for it from my university days. I believe in the diversity and potential of  regional New South Wales, where I was born and have spent much of my life. The landscape and the wine growers of the Mudgee and Orange regions are a great focus for me, as I see the great potential it has for producing delicious, balanced red wines.
I believe in employing traditional, hands-on methods to achieve this more natural, softer, riper, fruit driven style of wine that lets the fruit and perfumes lead the way during and after fermentation. I also believe in learning lessons from the old, even ancient ways of doing things. I treat the fruit differently every year according to the conditions given me but my method is gentle and soft – like my wines – I only want to extract as much as will extract gently, never forcing it – allowing balance and harmony to come easier through to finishing drink. My fermentations are seven to eighteen and even twenty one days, cool, whole-bunch  commencing with foot-treading daily for one week to sometimes two weeks. This is followed by persistent hand-plunging then gentle basket-pressing at the end. The fermentation is allowed to finish on lees in oak barrels after settling first in tank for a day. All wines are then cold aged (12-28 months) in a mixture of new and old French, Russian and Hungarian Oak to create the two signature varieties in Eloquesta. And now i do pretty much the same techniques for my whites as well.
I am a qualified scientist and high school teacher with almost 13 years of understanding and hands on experience experience in the wine industry. Broadening my experience in the industry, I sharpened my style while working with other prolific wineries such as Cirillo Estate and Torbreck in the Barossa Valley, SA and Lowe Family Wines in Mudgee, NSW. I have been influenced by European styles of wine making and have worked with a German winery, the Rheinhessen – Jakob Neumer Weingut und Wurtz Weinmann.” Stuart Olsen
