2020 Estate Mélange Botrytis

Suitably Botrytised bunches were painstakingly hand-selected in the vineyard and further sorted in the winery prior to a protracted whole-bunch pressing. After overnight settling, the super-sweet juice was racked to a stainless-steel tank for fermentation. Once the ferment neared completion and reached a desired balance of alcohol and residual sugar, the wine was chilled, filtered and transferred for ageing in old 225-litre French oak barriques for 6 months.

The 2020 vintage provided unusually ideal mid to late season growing conditions to facilitate production of a Botrytis-influenced sweet Sauternes-style dessert wine from our Maroondah Highway vineyard. This time-honoured wine style brings an unctuous expression to our mature-age Semillon vines which is enhanced further through the introduction of small but essential complexing elements of late-harvested Sauvignon Blanc for restrained acidity with Muscadelle & Sauvignon Gris for perfume and weight. 

Concentrated and complexed via infection of the selected berries with the noble Botrytis cinerea, this wine is rich and hedonistic, luscious and viscous yet elegant and structured. Aromas of golden syrup dumplings, barley sugar, crystallised ginger, beeswax andorange marmalade meld with flavours of orange poppy seed cake, cumquat and cardamom panna cotta. A smattering of phenolics on the finish helps draw the palate long giving resolution and profundity, keeping the sweetness in check. It will gain further richness and dark allure with careful cellaring over 10+ years.