Winemaker Notes
Annie' s Lane is now one of the finest wineries in Australia's renowned Clare Valley and represents the finest vineyards in one of South Australia's great regions. The Annie's Lane wines rely on regional and varietal expression and have been awarded with over 350 trophies and medals at wine shows in Australia and across the globe since the first release in 1996. The most successful of all the wines has been the super-premium Copper Trail Shiraz.
The home of Annie's Lane is the heritage listed Quelltaler winery at the heart of Watervale, in the Clare Valley's south. Quelltaler is the region's oldest and most important winery, dating back to 1863. Fruit for Annie's Lane is sourced from magnificent old Watervale vines as well as from vineyards to the north in the Polish Hill River sub-district where the cooler ripening period and extraordinary slate riddled soils combine to create an unmistakable stamp of the Clare Valley.
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
