Winery & Vintage Info
The difficult 2011 and 2017 vintages come to mind when reflecting on the 2023 vintage. Well above average rainfall throughout late winter, spring and the first 2 months of summer caused havoc on the vineyard. Downy mildew, which loves wet weather, was difficult to keep in check with organic sprays. Unfortunately, the alternate varieties like Tempranillo and Grenache were susceptible to uncontrolled mildew but as usual Shiraz was characteristically resilient to the wet as it is to the heat. Chardonnay was also successful in surviving the onslaught and along with Shiraz produced an excellent crop with great colour and intensity, so like the 2017 vintage some great wines will come from some difficult conditions.
Sanguine's boutique vineyard and winery is a family enterprise intent on making concentrated, sophisticated and complex wines inspired by the unique Heathcote terroir, a fault line of ancient Cambrian red rock pulverised over 510 million years into soil.
Sanguine have utilised the vertical shoot positioning trellis system to open up the canopy, reduce the risk of disease and expose bunches to direct sun light for ripening. The vines are cane pruned to a single fruiting wire with a maximum 20 buds per vine. Crop levels are naturally low and hence bunch thinning is generally not required, and irrigation kept to a minimum with some blocks unirrigated.
To conserve the natural balance within the soils and hence the overall health of the vines, Sanguine aim to minimise the use of chemicals. It is their practice to utilise organic principles in the first instance such as organic fertilisers and mulching to control weed growth and then if absolutely necessary, use small amounts of chemicals to target specific parts of the vineyard.
Sanguine utilise traditional winemaking practices such as small fermentation tanks, natural fermentation (i.e. no yeast additions) and gravity feeding. Whilst this can be quite labour intensive, they believe it ensures the preservation of natural fruit flavours and the Heathcote terroir character. As with all varieties produced at Sanguine Estate, the grapes were de-stemmed, lightly crushed and then naturally fermented with wild indigenous yeasts in small open fermenters. The wine is then transferred via gravity (to avoid pump shock) to predominantly French oak barriques (approximately 15% new) and left to mature for approximately 12 months.
