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Wine Description
The Story
Before the 2005 vintage the resource for the Eden Valley Viognier has been largely from the various blocks of Viognier planted on the Vaughan vineyard. In 2005 two additional good quality Viognier vineyards became available, adding yet another dimension to the final wine.
After harvest 60 per cent of the fruit was gently pressed directly to barrels, the rest to a stainless steel tank. The juice was handled with passive oxidation, allowing the wine to ferment with indigenous yeasts natural to the vineyard. The wine was left on lees that, with regular batonage over 10 months, increased the complexity and creaminess of the wine and further heightened the palate weight. At blending, the barrels of wine that did not made the Virgilius blend were also included in the assemblage.
Vintage 2002
Australia 2002 was a cold year with plenty of winter and spring rain to support the vines for the year. Summer and fall were completely dry. The summer was the coldest on record. Fall had one of the warmest endings. All of this meant that we had very low yields of grapes and produced high quality wines. The grapes had a very good scent (nose and taste, more floral than usual), good concentration and good acidity. A great year for whites and maybe a few reds. However, it was important to pick the grapes very ripe and keep the nitrogen to a minimum.