Time is one of the most important ingredients in winemaking, starting with selecting the right time to pick the grapes. During harvest our winemakers and viticulturists work closely together to select the vineyards, blocks and rows to be picked.
They make these decisions based on ripeness and flavour development. They pick the fruit in the cool of the day, or night to preserve the natural vibrancy in the fruit.
Our state of the art wineries are within the regions of our vineyards. A short travel time means winemaking can start only hours after the fruit is picked. Our wineries combine technology, science and tradition to enable us to craft, capture and complement the unique and pure flavours in the grapes.
Upon receival to the winery, our precision batch presses release the delicate ‘free run’ juice and gently press off the fruit.
For our white wines, temperature controlled cold settling is the most important step to prepare the juice for fermentation. Temperature controlled fermentation retains the freshness and youthful expression of the fruit. A hallmark of our white wines is lees stirring, which results in a richer texture and complexity to complement the fruit.
For our red winemaking we use specifically designed open top fermentation tanks for small batch winemaking. The open tops mean we can plunge the wine, which imparts colour, aroma and ripe fruit tannins.