Salomon Estate Fleurieu Peninsula The Verve Free red 2016
Regular price $33.00
Unit price per
50% Syrah & 50% Mataro from Fleurieu Peninsula given 42 days skin contact to enable bottling with lower SO2. Soft and juicy.
'Interesting wine: 42 days on skins has extracted all the tannins from the shiraz and mataro grapes, but any harshness has long since gone. Tannin is a form of natural antioxidant, and this has enabled the wine to be made with no sulphur addition until bottling, when a small addition was made after the wine had spent 12 months in used oak. It is fresh, and has attitude on the finish.' 91 points, James Halliday, July 2018.
’The gist here is ‘free’ as in liberating the wine production team from more conventional methodology. There’s a reference to ‘traditional fermentation’ on the back label, but I don’t know what that means. Anyway, that aside, the wine has a good vibe to it. Packaging is bistro friendly too, though I can’t find a picture of that either. Jammy, sweet and ripe scents and flavours. Soft and supple to taste offering raspberry jubes, white pepper and toasty notes. A little extra tangy through the finish, but you could say ‘fresh’ too. Easy drinking, lively red of ready appeal.’ Mike Bennie, The Wine Front, November 2017.
Bert and Gertrud Salomon are full-time travellers when it comes to wine. In Austria's Kremstal region on the Danube they manage their seventh-generation family estate, Salomon Undhof. Then once vintage is complete in the northern hemisphere, they fly south to Australia to manage Salomon Estate.
Salomon Estate was founded in 1995, originating from great ideas and passions. The first being Bert and Gertrud’s love for the landscape around the Finniss River vineyard. Second, their enjoyment of great red wines and last but not least the enthusiasm they both have for diverse cultures.
The wines here are produced off a single property located on the Finniss River, about 20km southeast of McLaren Vale, where the Adelaide Hills run into the Fleurieu Peninsula. The soils are typically gravel and sand over red and orange sandstone and the vineyard falls gently away towards the northwest providing ideal exposure, warm days ensure ripe fruit flavours while the cooling breezes which roll off the Southern Ocean in the late afternoon ensure excellent acid retention. Here, Australian robustness meets European elegance in a most convincing fashion.