This Honeypot Roussanne was made entirely from Helen and Mark O’Brien’s remarkable vineyard. Roussanne has a love-hate relationship with the Barossa as it can achieve some high-highs but also plenty of low-lows. Getting the acidity right is key and Elena is hyper-focused on that vs sugar levels. She also looks to bottle it early maintaining a lot of freshness and lacking the weight that the Rhône white grapes are known for. The result is a mineral-driven style of Roussanne that is a bridge to the Rhône for many.
Whole bunches of hand tended and hand harvested Roussanne was picked in the cool of early morning then gentled crushed with only the free run juice being fermented without a carefully selected yeast strain in a stainless-steel tank. The wine sat on the fine lees for three months without battonage and was racked and bottled three months later. It was bottled with a vegan fining, sterile filtration, and sulfur addition.