Grapes are hand picked and cooled overnight. The following morning they are put into the press and pressed as whole bunches. No sulphur, yeast, acid, enzymes or water were added. Very cloudy juice was transferred to neutral oak barrels, with only the heaviest of solids left behind. Fermentation took place over 4 weeks, after which about half of the barrels completed malolactic fermentation. In Autumn wines were sulphured for the first time. Wines were bottled in December after having spent 11 months in barrel with no racking or fining A prickly pear grows in this old vineyard, often referred to as a Barbary fig, ficus or fiction; a barbary fiction: tales formed by the mariners of the age of exploration created a mystique about the terrifying places that lay beyond the edge of maps. These tales served to ‘make sense of’ and overcome the fear and danger of these new, shrouded places, often by contorting them into the incomprehensible.
