Smalltown Vineyards Sub Aqua Club, Orange Wine

Fresh apricot in hue, delightfully textural on the palate, almost thick. It’s at once marmalade and marble being all rich, sinewy, aromatic. Finely grained for a skin-contact wine, it should not be served too cold. Be prepared for something different.

Orange wines are something to be savoured, not knocked back. Think sherry texture, and high acidity. Great for spicy or powerful dishes, or hard aged cheeses.

Predominantly Viognier, plus Riesling planted in a vineyard in Moppa Springs in the furthest Northern vineyard in the Barossa Valley. The vines are dry-grown, and all the fruit is harvested before sunrise to keep the grapes as cool as possible. Whole berries are placed in open-top fermenters with indigenous yeasts. The temperature is kept as low as possible to keep the ferment long and gentle, and the cap is plunged 2-3 times daily. After 5-7 days on the skins the ferment is pressed and racked to stainless steel to finish fermenting to dryness. Malolactic fermentation occurs in seasoned, neutral French oak and then the wine is left on the lees for about a month. The lees are then removed, and the wine left to age in barrel for 4-5 months before filtration and bottling.