There is an energy to Paul and Gilli’s wines that is hard to pin down. Gilli attributes it to nailing the picking dates as much as possible. It’s a cliché but it’s all about balance. There was a remarkable evenness to the fruit in 2018, with generous fruit weight and lovely tannin ripeness. The winter was cool leading into spring and budbreak was a month later than usual, which is not a good thing in the coolest wine region in Australia. That said, the growing season was unseasonably warm and very even and harvest was actually a month earlier than usual with very developed grapes. It was a dream vintage in many ways.

The fruit was hand-picked and the fruit was cold soaked overnight prior to being left to its own in small one-ton fermenters outdoors. The wild ferments kicked off much earlier than normal and they had slightly higher ferment temperatures. This and the warmth / sunlight of the season meant there was a little more tannin depth than usual. It was the first year they’ve had where all the seeds were brown and crunchy. Stems were also nicely lignified thus increasing the use up to around 15% overall. After 13 days on skins the wine was pressed to 300L and 230L barrels where the wine aged and carried out malolactic fermentation. It was left unsulfured through late spring and completely untouched after than sulfur addition. After 14 months in barrel in total the wines were racked and blended then bottled without fining or filtration.