A nose of fresh plums and cherry blossoms allude to this wine’s central delicate fruit aromatics. The details are found by spending time with the wine, allowing it to open up and show the warmer side with vanilla and leather.

The palate is subtle but complex with finely-spread tannins. Open and calm at the front, acidity draws the wine inwards in the middle before it shifts its weight towards the back palate, where it closes in with a combination of fruit and oak flavours.

This is an intriguing wine that doesn’t readily give away its secrets. To define this wine requires time in order to get to know the complexities and layers that are in store.

From our winemaker, Wilco Lam

“From early on, we were interested to use art as part of our label design. As I draw my tasting notes rather than write them, the idea was created to find an artist who could abstract these into a stylised representation that we could use for the label design.

I worked closely with our chosen artist, Leanne Williams. We tasted the wines throughout their evolution in the cellar, discussing how I interpret each one of them during their life cycle and my ideas on what I would like them to represent as a wine. I prefer to use these visual representations for my tasting notes that focus on the textural impact of the wine. These sparked lots of conversations when we compared our interpretations, and how these impact creative processes for both of us.

Leanne has used my tasting drawings and our discussions as the basis for her paintings. Each label is uniquely for the specific wine variety and style”

‘Swirling Soft Touch’ 2023, by Leanne Williams, Crystal Chain Gang

We harvest all our fruit by hand into small tubs. The fruit is sorted the following day, cold, and is all destemmed into 900kg ferment vessels. We let the newly filled vessels acclimatise and warm so that a natural fermentation occurs. An occasional hand plunge helps to keep the ferments happy and homogenous. This way we also gently extract what we look for in the wine: softness, and approachability, with bite-sized tannins and no element too overwhelming. We have to respect that the wine has its own voice, and we need to let it speak. After between 14 and 20 days in the fermenting vessel, we pressed the wines and transferred them to large format barrels, 300 and 500 litres, for 12 months.

We couldn’t think of a better year to introduce Oraterra to you. We have enjoyed bringing one of our most challenging seasons to a successful end in the vineyard. The fantastic early-season growing conditions heightened our enthusiasm to new levels, that couldn’t be spoiled by the late-season rain events, no matter how bad. This came down to the meticulous management of our team in the vineyard, who showed their dependability in dealing with the good and the bad. You will drink the rewards of their efforts, so thank you to James, Michelle and Mckenzie!