di Lusso Winter Wine Release

Dominating all else for the last few weeks since the end of vintage has been the bottling and timely release of seven new wines – all of which we’re very excited about indeed…

Firstly, one of our flagship varietals – Pinot Grigio – has been bottled in greater volume than ever before. And in two styles! Our ‘traditional’ refreshing and lively one; but also our first Pinot Grigio Elegante – as the name implies, a style offering subtle nuances and more complexity on the palate than normal in a Pinot Grigio.

We’re releasing our first Arneis since 2008 – this time using Mudgee fruit. It carries all those familiar pear fruit and minerally characters that differentiate it from the citrus and tropical tones of northern Italian wines.

The 2012 Vino Rosato is a beauty, in my view retaining all the pomegranate and cherryness of its predecessor, with perhaps a bit more ‘vivacity’ and as a result a classic wine to accompany cold meat and vegetable antipasti.

And to our two flagship reds. The 2011 Sangiovese has this year been ‘relegated’ to a new sub-label we call Cypress Avenue – denoting that for seasonal reasons (ie cool and wet) while a carefully made wine it doesn’t have quite the same personality as our ‘house style’ (and is priced accordingly).

The 2011 Barbera somehow avoided the vagaries of the vintage, and has all the juicy generosity that one hopes for ..a lovely example of what Mudgee can produce with this mostly well-behaved variety!

And last but by no means least is our 2011 Nebbiolo – made in the ‘quirky’ di Lusso style that’s closest to a Nebbiolo d’Alba in its gentle texture.

(A footnote: we’re still to bottle two other whites from the 2012 vintage – 2012 Adagio, a ‘super-white’ blend of Pinot Grigio, Vermentino, Greco and Arneis, our 2012 Greco (can’t use the ‘di Tufo’  anymore, thanks to our Italian cousins!). bottling of these two will take place around mid-August..in time for release during the Mudgee Wine Festival)

Our building has extended!

If you’ve been to our cellar door recently you will have noticed some changes! Our outdoor pergola area has been extended with a fancy alfresco dining area, and now includes our logo printed on the glass at the entrance. The extension means we have more shade and can cater for more people during our weekend lunches. It finishes off the building quite nicely we think!

Rob

Aleatico is in!

We’re rolling with the punches...yesterday we looked at the Aleatico fruit in the vineyard and the grapes were tasty and flavoursome. But the block had a fair amount of bird damage (hmm the birds are not silly, they go for the most flavoursome grapes first!), coupled with the four inches of rain we received last weekend, which meant we had to pick earlier than we would have liked.

We therefore handpicked only the good bunches, which was just under 1 tonne, short of the 3 tonne we were expecting. Last night we crushed it and put the yeast in straight away and this morning it had already developed some colour. The plan is to leave it on the skins for 36-48 hours to extract the desired colour and flavour, then press it off and put it in a tank. The wine will then be made essentially like a white wine, away from the skins. When we are happy with the sugar levels and balance of the wine we will stop the ferment early to retain this natural sugar for our dessert style wine.
Julia

Bottling time at di Lusso

The long awaited 2009 Appassimento – we did not produce a 2008 – has like its predecessors surprised us with its subtle year to year variation. This release is a rich amalgam of marmalades from a blend of mandarin, orange and even a hint of apricot; the complexity being derived from a new production method involving both drying on racks of some of the fruit and maturing a portion of the wine for a short period in French oak.

Two wines from our new Cypress Avenue range are being bottled today – the 2011 Pinot Grigio, our first made from Mudgee fruit! The other from this range is the 2011 Sangiovese, a different style to our usual Sangiovese.

Also bottling today...
2011 Picolit – we have made this one in truly authentic Italian style, which is by part drying the grapes on racks, and then at the end before bottling we put the wine in oak.
2011 Lagrein - This, the second release of this varietal wine hailing from Alto Adiga in North Italy, has aromas that remind me of walks alongside blackcurrant bushes. The palate like its predecessor is deep robust and almost earthy. A great wine to accompany a rich roast meat and vegetables – not a chicks wine!
Rob

We're picking fruit!

On Friday we picked our Muscat fruit for Moscato - just in time as we’re just about out of our 2011 vintage. Next week we should be picking small amounts of Sangiovese and Lagrein to make our Vino Rosato.

Jules

Lots of harvest news at di Lusso...!

Pinot Grigio fruit has arrived at di Lusso from Orange – a region well known for its high altitude and cool climate. While our 2012 Pinot Grigio style will remain basically the same, this year for the first time we have whole-bunch pressed some of our fruit. We’re expecting a really good outcome from this method when the wine is bottled at the end of May.

We are also about to bottle our first Mudgee Pinot Grigio fruit from the 2011 vintage – this wine will be the first release under our new “Cypress Avenue” label. The label is a graphic representation of a photo I took several years ago at Montalcino in Tuscany. Also appearing under this label – which covers those wines which while we are proud of are not representative of our di Lusso style – is a 2011 Sangiovese.
Rob

Vintage is just around the corner!!

Vintage is nearly upon us and we have started grape maturity testing. Most of our 8 varieties are past 50% veraison (where the grapes begin to soften and reds start to develop colour). This is also when sugars start to accumulate in the berries. To measure these sugar levels we take a representative sample from the vineyard block (say 30 random bunches), crush the grapes and strain off the juice. I then test the Baumé (measure of density using a hydrometer to indicate sugar levels), pH and TA (measure of acid level), to give us an idea of how they are ripening and how close to harvest they may be.
The samples we have tested so far are Sangiovese, Barbera, and Lagrein and from their results we still have a couple of weeks before we will need to pick for our Rosato. So, a bit more time to get organised in the winery before that one, but we just have to cross our fingers for good weather and hope the predicted rain doesn’t eventuate.

Baumé- a word often used but not always explained...
The Baumé (often represented as Bé) scale was developed by a French pharmacist Antoine Baumé. In the wine industry it is used to indicate how ripe the grapes are getting. It translates (by simple calculation) to a sugar level in the juice. In very approximate terms it also gives us an idea of the potential alcohol that can be produced in the end wine. So fruit picked at 11Bé would have the potential to produce a wine with a finished alcohol of approximately 11% (assuming the juice is fully fermented through to dryness, ie, no residual sugar).

Julia