Winery & Vintage Info
Named after the evocative sky beneath which Andre Bondar and Selina Kelly picked the last Shiraz bunches for their first-ever release of this wine, Violet Hour is a blend of fruit from 10 blocks in Bondar’s Rayner vineyard. Each block has a different aspect and soils range from deep sand with ironstone rocks to clay over limestone. The Shiraz vines are some of the oldest on the property, reaching 70 years in some blocks—a key to understanding the depth and detail this wine can express.
Violet Hour encapsulates the Bondar style—fragrance, juicy fruit and lightness of touch. The winemaking is adapted to the season; both whole-bunch and de-stemmed fruit are used and the juice spends varying times on skins, depending on the block. The wine sees seasoned oak only, usually for 10 months. The result is a seemingly effortless, transparent and deeply expressive wine that perfectly captures site, season and the Bondar style.
Similar to 2021, vintage 2022 was a relatively cool season in McLaren Vale and facilitated a long, even and stress-free ripening period. The result is a joyously fragrant and spice-driven Shiraz with svelte structure, bright acidity and length for days.
Exciting times are these for Australian wine. Times when quality small producers are popping up everywhere across the viticultural landscape. Times when many of these producers are striving to make delicious, lighter-bodied, fresher, purer, more digestible wines that have a strong sense of place. And now, most significantly, it is a time when some of these producers are realising that it is in the vineyard activity—more specifically the way their vineyards are planted and the way they are managed—that will ultimately determine the quality and uniqueness of the wines they are able to produce. Bondar is certainly at the heart of this zeitgeist.
Established in 2012, Bondar is the vision of husband-and-wife team Andre Bondar and Selina Kelly. Andre, with a history as a winemaker in the Adelaide Hills and Selina with a background in marketing and law, have planted roots (literally) in the north of McLaren Vale, Their new home is the Rayner Vineyard on Chalk Hill Road, where plantings of old bush vine Grenache and Shiraz vines up to 65-years-old are already in play, while newer, closer planted Counoise (one of the 13 Châteauneuf varieties) has been recently planted, and Mataro, Carignan and Cinsault are on the horizon. Winery Notes
