Silex Pinot Noir Rose 2018 (12 x 750mL) Mount Gambier GI

MATURATION

Fermentation in stainless steel was preceded by 6 hrs of skin contact.

WINEMAKERS NOTES

The Silex vineyard is located at Kongorong, some 80 kilometres South of Coonawarra in the Mount Gambier geographical region. The district has been famous for quite some time for its cheddar cheese. It also has a small and very specialized grapegrowing community. Its proximity to the Southern Ocean and the cold afternoon/evening sea breezes that blow most days during the growing season make it one of the coolest places in Australia to grow grapes. This coolness results in a slow extended ripening period delivering high natural acidity and delicate fruit characters.

Silex is a term used in Europe to describe flint or chert rock. The weathered limestone at this site has an extremely hard flint-like cap and only a shallow layer of red clay/loam soil for the vine roots to exploit. This and the weather make viticulture a real challenge.

The 2018 vintage was very early but harvesting was delay just long enough to lower extremely high acid levels so that a balanced wine was achieved without a large amount of residual sugar being left in the wine. The wine captures typical cool climate red fruit characters with the gamey stalky notes from the cool climate.

Its almost impossible not to think about strawberries and cream when tasting this wine

Time in the bottle will see the yeastiness fade more into the background and the gamey fruit characters will become more obvious.