Winemaker Notes
Pure Vermentino with notes of stone fruits and salinity.
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
Grown on the Gullyview Vineyard at Watervale. Fermented in Slavonian oak Demi-muid. It feels soft in the mouth, and it pours grapefruit pulp, slate, crushed fennel and citrus flavours along the way. It has everything required and an extra level of poise too.
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James Suckling
Very minerally and on the edge of reduction, with aromas of flint, lemon confit and orange blossoms. The palate is textural and precise, with notes of grapefruit rind, lime curd and oyster shells. Excellent balance and polish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Rolle is salty and plump and a little chewy, with salted cashews, graphite, cold peach tea, apple skins and brine. It is texturally engaging, which makes it fun to drink, but it's also complex and lingering through the finish, which engages more than just the palate. It's a cool wine, and I'm glad to have it here again today. It comes recommended. 10.5% alcohol, sealed under Diam.
A fantastic, aromatic white grape that grows with great success in Sardinia, Tuscany and in lesser proportions on the island of Corsica. Somm Secret—Vermentino is thought to be genetically identical to Liguria’s Pigato grape and Peidmont’s Favorita. It comprises a large proportion of the whites in southern France where it is called Rolle.
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.