Morning Bride Rosé 2016
Tasting Notes
Our aim with the Morning Bride is to make a beautiful, very pale pink Rosé reminiscent of the French ones made from Mourvedre in the South of France . Ours is made using Shiraz however, which we harvest early to make a dedicated Rosé wine. The Morning Bride was not made as an afterthought! The colour is a little darker than I would have liked. I would like to say that some quirk of nature affected the colour, but in fact the cause was more mundane. The forklift transporting the bin of Shiraz to be crushed and de-stemmed ran out of steam and the grapes lay in their own juice for just that little bit too long. Don’t worry though – this has not in any way affected the taste of this delicate, bone-dry Rosé! You will find strawberry, watermelon, and a mild exotic ginger spice character on the nose, and fresh red fruits on the palate. Morning Bride is quite delicious as an aperitif and wonderful with crab, spicy food or a caramelised onion tart à la Provence.
Vintage
We had a very dry spring leading up to vintage 2016 and it was windy, too. We expect windy conditions in Willunga, but this was pretty intense. October and December were both pretty warm, whereas November was mild. Very healthy crops were recorded across all varieties in McLaren Vale. We had a huge downpour at the end of January a few days before the whites were due to be picked; this kind of weather event tends to give Joch a sense of tightening around the left chest area, neck and sometimes down the arm. However this 50mm downpour succeeded in refreshing the vines, giving us a few more days before picking and bringing the lawns back from the brink. February was mild with cool nights and March provided pretty good picking conditions, give or take a few warm days.
Winemaking
The ‘Morning Bride’ is a dedicated Rosé - we picked some of our Chanticleer Shiraz early, especially to make this wine. Grapes were de-stemmed and pressed with no skin contact at all. There was a cool, temperature-controlled fermentation in stainless steel tanks and once the grapes were through malolactic fermentation the wine was stabilised, filtered and then went straight to bottle.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Picking Date: 11th February 2016
Alc/Vol: 12.0%
Bottling Date: 19th May 2016