Across our Great Southern sites the whites will be the first fruit to come off, shortly followed by the Pinot Noir and then our reds in Frankland River later in March to mid-April. Our Great Southern Chardonnays sourced from Mount Barker, Albany and of course Denmark will be coming off the vines in late February through to late March. Hand-picking Chardonnay is spread across three days down here at the Denmark site, depending upon clonal development within each of our blocks, before sending the fruit straight to the cool room to be chilled. From there it is hand loaded into the press as whole bunches and pressed straight to barrel where we’ll leave it for 12 or 13 months before transferring to a stainless tank to rest and mature for a further six months prior to bottling.

This month we will also be bottling the 2021 Il Liris Red, an exceptional and pure expression of our Frankland River site, which will mature in bottle for around three years before being released. You’ll be able to soon enjoy the 2022 Empirica Fiore del Campowhich we bottled in late January. In the meantime, we have just releasedan AlbanyBarrel Fermented Empirica Sauvignon Blancwhich is available via our website.

Safe to say we have a busy couple of months of winemaking ahead of us down here. Exciting times!