By CASEY NEILL
The Craft and Co will release its first Bangholme-grown wines later this year.
Winemaker Rory Lane said they’d include a viognier, a pinot noir, and a blend.
A giant clay pot stands out from the barrels and stainless steel tanks at the Riverend Road farm.
“Rather than maturing it in wood or stainless steel it’s clay, terracotta. They’re made in Tuscany in Italy,” he said.
“Stainless steel doesn’t let any air through. Wood lets quite a bit through, depending on the age of the wood.
“The older the barrel, the less it lets through because, essentially, they get clogged up with wine.
“It also depends on the vessel’s size as well.
“The bigger the vessel is, typically the smaller the transfer of air through that vessel.
“Big containers oxidise a lot slower, smaller containers oxidise a lot quicker.”
Mr Lane said the terracotta amphora held 800 litres.
“It will be quite a slow rate of maturation but not as slow as a stainless steel tank of the same size,” he said.
“Because the terracotta is not very uniform and it’s all hand-made so the thickness varies a little bit, they seal the inside with beeswax and you do get a very slight beeswax character that comes through in the wine.”
Rory is looking forward to playing with the 11 different grape varieties grown at the site to produce blends.
“There’s shiraz there but also viognier, and in one particular regional in the northern Rhone Valley they blend a little bit of the white variety, viognier, with the shiraz,” he said.
“That helps to lift perfume and lighten the wine a little bit.
“There are certain pigments in white grape skins that almost paradoxically help to fix the colour in red grape skins, so if you mix a bit of white grapes in with the red grapes the colour fixes better.
“You could do a northern Rhone Valley blend, you could do a southern Rhone Valley blend with grenache, mourvedre and shiraz.
“You could do a Bordeaux-style blend of the cabernet varieties.
“Then there’s pinot noir as well, which has always typically been a straight variety.
“So for me it’s interesting to see what different proportions of the different varieties work best.”
Mr Lane said each variety would differ in quality each year.
“Which variety ends up being the best on average I’m not sure yet,” he said.
“I think the shiraz is going to be pretty good here.
“We’re not that far from Mornington, so the pinot’s going to be pretty good.
“The grenache is a real dark horse, that’s my favourite at the moment.
“It will produce a slightly lighter style but it’s really aromatic.”
