Sweet Pea McLaren Vale Moscato 2015
Tasting Notes
If you read the back label of this wine you will see that we describe our ‘Sweet Pea’ as an ideal breakfast wine. This makes us sound like lushes here at BoB and SS wines, when in fact all we are trying to do is help with your food and wine matching dilemmas. Our Moscato has a gorgeous grapey nose of Turkish Delight, a hint of cinnamon and a little bubble gum. Of course ‘Sweet Pea’ is sweet (because of the residual sugar that remains after we stop the fermentation) but it finishes with a wonderful savoury character. It is perfect with scrambled eggs (and smoked salmon if you are pushing the boat out) but also works well at the other end of the day when it matches well with strawberry based desserts. Making cocktails? Add some gin to the ‘Sweet Pea’ plenty of ice, fresh lime, soda water (if you are feeling cautious) and an umbrella if you are feeling flamboyant. Is there nothing our Sweet Pea Moscato can’t do?
Vintage
We had a very early start to vintage in 2015, with generally mild conditions throughout. We had only a handful of hot days, which allowed natural acids to develop nicely. This was a very short, sharp vintage, with most winemakers finishing their vintage well before Easter. Yields were down, somewhere between 10 and 30% depending on variety. Joch’s take on the whole thing? ‘Fast, early and pretty’.
Winemaking
There are over 200 strains/ varieties of the Muscat grape in the world; some say the modern wine grape evolved from this variety. This much I know from Google. Our Sweet Pea is made using Muscat à Petit Grains, which is common throughout central and Eastern Europe. It is a red grape, although it is used predominantly to make either sweet or dry white wines. We use it to make our ever so slightly pink and ‘frizzante’ Moscato wine. We pick the grapes and allow them to spend a small amount of time ‘on skins’ so we get the lovely pink colour. We then make the wine like a white wine; press off skins and ferment. The wine is chilled to stop fermented and bottled with a little bit of fizz.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Picking Date: 13th February 2015
Alc/Vol: 7%
Bottling Date: 13th May 2015