Source: Winemaking,
The Sangreal vineyard was planted in 1994, making it our oldest vineyard. It lies on a north-facing slope and the soil composition is bluestone and overlaying limestone, with red ironstone colouring the surface. This is unlike our other vineyards, which are mostly black volcanic soil with heavy amounts of limestone on the surface. The vine rows run north-south, receiving full sun exposure throughout the day, resulting in more perfumed, prettier wines. This is always the first vineyard to be harvested. The clones used in Sangreal are 114 and 115, which we believe have mutated over time to become the ?Sangreal clone?, now within its own microclimate.With this forecast of weather due during the last week of February, we decided to pick our GC Chardonnay and RP Pinot Pinot before the heat arrived on the 26th Feb.
The sugar levels rose substantially during the first two days of the heat wave, and therefore it was now ?game on? to harvest all the younger and weaker vineyards. 35 head lamps were purchased, and night harvesting commenced. The surreal calmness in the vineyard was quite breathtaking, as you could see light and hear voices without faces. Harvest lunches became sunrise breakfast, thanks to chief cook Ben Knight and his trusty side kick Olivia.
The remainder of the fruit such as Farrside, Irrewarra and Shiraz was finally brought in to the winery by the 10th April. A drawn out year that may promise so much as all the fruit was picked with reasonable acidity, fine tannins and elegant flavour.
VINIFICATION
Sangreal is consistently made with 70 per cent whole bunch and aged in 70 percent new oak. It is fermented in a five-tonne oak barrel with an open-top fermenter, and cold soaked for four days before a natural fermentation of seven to nine days. Once the cap falls, the tank is pressed. The wine is racked only once after malolactic fermentation, then sulphured and bottled, the entire process taking a total of 18 months. The wine is unfined and unfiltered in order to retain its natural flavour and bouquet. Sangreal is the most seamless and perfumed of the three single-vineyard pinots.
TASTING NOTES
Each year the same descriptive notes come to mind for this wine: seductive, perfumed, seamless balance and moreish. It is a site that wavers very little in more difficult vintages and excels in the great ones?this is the backbone of By Farr wines. The alluring characters of this vineyard, combined with red fruits, whole bunch, acidity and oak, have produced a beautifully interwoven expression of site and vintage. That?s what it?s all about.
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