2023 Nomads Garden “Baxendale Vineyard’ Skin Contact White, King Valley
THE WINE
The fruit (Sauvignon Blanc) used to create our 2O23 Skin Contact White comes from the incredible Baxendale Vineyard which sits like an island in the sky, hovering at 62OmASL above the township of Whitfield. It’s truly a remarkable site that words simply don’t do justice. 36O° panoramic views in all directions of the nearby mountains and valleys.
The cool climate site allows a super long growing season and the retention of natural acidity. Incredibly this was the last fruit we received into our winery in 2O23 and was picked together with the fruit used to make Pet Nat. The fruit was picked using the latest generation of high tech selective harvester the night before the heavens opened, the fruit was taken at just the right time and incredibly clean, a great effort in a testing year for our growers.
Again in 2O23 we have pushed further away from making this wine in oxidative manor, the winemaking is incredibly simple and has evolved vastly since our maiden release in 2O19. The wine shows a pale blonde colour in glass. The bouquet exhibits a unique combination subtle floral notes and wet stone. The palate shows great concentration and balance, despite having 136 days on skins the wine is not dominated by the skin contact, instead it has simply added a new dimension to the wine. Its contribution is to the texture and length of the wine. In our opinion this is a great step for us in our quest to create a skin contact white wine that is both interesting to drink yet immensely drinkable.
VINIFICATION
2O23 was a vintage that required much tireless work in the vineyards as a result of a very wet humid start to the growing season. However those who managed to get their vines through to Christmas disease free were rewarded with fruit displaying an amazing vibrancy and natural acidity thanks to the super weather conditions.
The winemaking for this wine is incredibly simple and a process in not losing your nerve as a winemaker. The fruit is machine picked in the cool of the night using a new generation machine harvester then crushed immediately upon arrival to the winery then transferred to a large 1O,OOOL variable capacity tank/fermentor. The lid is dropped on the tank to protect from oxidation until fermentation commences at which point it is raised and the wine is pumped over once a day to wet the cap. The temperature of the fermentation is controlled to be held around 14c.
It’s our belief the duration of skin contact needs to be less than 48 hours or greater than 7O days. In between the wines goes through a stage where it progressively becomes more and more phenolic and tannic but eventually if you hold your nerve it comes out the other side and you are rewarded with complex and textural wine that is not grippy and unpleasant at all. We taste the wine weekly to determine the optimal time to remove the skins. In 2O23 this was after some 136 days.
Over the years we have found that the key to maintaining the vitality and nuances of this wine is not to press the skins, instead the wine under the skins is pumped away and the cap allowed to drain for 6 hours under no pressure. This means our extraction rate is only around 6OOL/T but the upside is none of the dirty oxidized wine held in the cap makes it into the final wine. The wine is then chilled and racked twice before going to bottle unfiltered. The only addition to this wine was some nutrients to ensure a healthy clean ferment and 4Oppm of PMS just prior to bottling to protect the wine from oxidation.
VINEYARD: BAXENDALE VINEYARD
REGION/GI: KING VALLEY / Whitlands
GROWER: JIM BAXENDALE
RESIDUAL SUGAR: O.Og
ALC/VOL : 12.5%
ACID: 7.2g/L pH: 3.3
PICKED: O6/O4/2O23
BOTTLED: MAY 2O23 unfiltered
BAUME: 12.O at picking
