Sam and Alastair were drinking this wine in the shower of a caravan park they use to stay in while making wine in the South Burnett. This boozy shower was followed by a boozy mid vintage BBQ and they got chatting about potential names for some of the new cuvées. They liked the idea and challenge of trying to make Murgon (home of the winery they were using and closest town to the vineyard) sound fancy. Tough ask, especially with a monotone QLD drawl of an accent like Sam. They pulled out one of the oldest tricks in the book and used French. Translating to “tropical shower of Murgon”, which represents the shower in which the thought process began, the tropical nature of Verdelho and props to the great town of Murgon, all while sounding kinda fancy. Since this time, they have moved to sourcing the fruit from the Granite Belt so the name lost the Murgon but has remained as the The Tropical Shower!
The grapes were run through the destemmer with little to no crushing and then left to chill in the cold room in small format stainless tanks. Pump overs took palce for a week while it chilled and then it was brought out into the fresh air for natural ferment. The wine was left on the skins for a further two weeks with twice daily plunging. They pressed hard and slow after this 3 week period on skins just as the ferment had finished to ensure some natural CO2 protection at the press. The wine was settled and then racked off the gross lees to stainless-steel tanks to undergo MLF to soften the acidity and provide some more texture. It was racked three times given the intense haze which just wouldn’t drop out. Then it was bottled unfined and unfiltered, with just a touch of sulfur, roughly 5 months after the pick date.
