Winery & Vintage Info
The name for d'Arenberg' The Footbolt wine comes from Joseph Osborn who was a successful racehorse owner, and Footbolt was the pride of his stable. In 1912 he made the hard decision to sell his horses to purchase the d’Arenberg property.
A healthy winter and plenty of spring rains set the vines up very well. Bud burst was on time, but very cool for the first part of spring. Shoots grew to 5 or 6 inches long and then stopped for a month. Flowering was quite late, by three weeks, which meant a late start to harvest, and long, slow ripening periods. The summer rains stopped in mid-January, so disease pressure was low. It was very dry from February to April, with only a few millimetres of rain. Days were mild with a lot of cool nights, the first few weeks of April was around two degrees hotter than usual, which help that last bits of fruit to ripen. Overall, a great vintage with minimal disease pressure and above average crop levels.
Small batches of grapes are crushed gently and then transferred to five tonne headed down open fermenters. These batches remain separate until final blending. Foot treading is undertaken two thirds of the way through fermentation.The wine is then basket pressed and then transferred to a mixture of new and used French oak barriques to complete fermentation. The barrel ferments are aged on lees, and there is no racking until final blending. This wine does not undertake fining or filtration prior to bottling.
