Description

from the winery: Our Marsanne is based on the style of the great Hermitage Blancs of the Northern Rhone Valley. We aim for richness, minerality and hedonism in this, our most premium white wine. The style is typically lower in acid and high in phenolic content, which provides richness on the palate and requisite phenolics to age. While floral, bright in fruit and pretty in youth this wine should age to become savoury, complex, and decadent in years to come.

Our Marsanne is from a vineyard on the sands of Vine Vale owned by the Steinborner family. The grapes are handpicked and whole bunch pressed into tank, cold settled overnight before racking and allowed to begin fermenting naturally. Once the ferment is under way the juice is transferred and barrel fermented in half new and half second use, French oak barriques. It is lees stirred and undergoes malolactic fermentation and matured in oak for approximately nine months. Aside from a minor bentonite fining to cold stabilise the wine, no fining or filtration is done to maintain the phenolic richness. The resultant wine is what I describe as a red wine drinkers’ white wine. It is incredibly aromatic with rich honeyed notes and very full and textured on the palate.

“The Marsanne shows notes of butterscotch, honeyed citrus, stone fruit, white florals and apricot kernel. The palate is shows creamy phenolic texture, though not in the slightest part oily. Flavours of stone fruit and honey abound with light lemony acid to maintain the long finish. The wine finishes with white peach and subtle savoury ham hock, with persistent phenolics driving to the end of the palate.”