Winery & Vintage Info
Petaluma wines bottled under the trademark 'Yellow Label' of Petaluma are testimony to our distinguished vineyard philosophy, heritage and pioneering spirit. They showcase our primary goal of making wine crafted from the best fruit grown in the right vineyard sites for each variety.
Lovely soaking rain in the winter of 2015 promised a good growing season. The old Hanlin Hill Vineyard, planted in 1968 on the eastern slopes of the Clare Valley then endured a really dry spring, and then the hottest December on record. The whole growing season was again about a month ahead of long term averages, so the vintage looked like being really early. Happily 42 mm of much needed rain fell in the week of the 22nd of January, and then another 11mm in early February which both slowed ripening and importantly really freshened the vines. The rain also made a mess of our crop estimates, and berry size increased by about 30%, giving us a bumper crop.
We started handpicking the ripe Riesling bunches on the 8th of February and finished on the 22nd of February; again a very early vintage by historical standards. Picking in February in days gone by was unheard of, now it’s the new norm.
The handpicked fruit arrived at our winery near Woodside in the Adelaide Hills in beautiful condition, and was destemmed, crushed and chilled before being pressed in air bag tank presses. The pristine free run juice was then held cold in tank, and the partially clarified juice inoculated with our chosen yeast strain to conduct the alcoholic fermentation.
This took between four and eight weeks, depending on the tank. At sugar dryness the cloudy wines were chilled to -2 C, and allowed to clarify by settling, before the blend was put together. Filtration preceded bottling in June 2016.
The Hanlin Hill Vineyard is planted on predominantly red-brown loam over slate and is up to 550 metres above sea level. This vineyard has produced a very full flavoured dry slatey mineral Riesling, since the style first emerged with the first Riesling from Hanlin Hill in 1979. Winery Notes
