“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


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09 March 2017

VINTAGE '17: FIRST GRAPES ARRIVE

Fruit from the new vintage began arriving at Yangarra Estate today. The crew usually starts the year processing grapes for other McLaren Vale folks where ripening occurs earlier than on Yangarra's own vineyards. This is Corrina Wright's Olivers' Taranga Mencia coming out of the basket press. Mencia's from north-western Spain originally. Until her newish plantings establish deeper roots, Corrina picks it early each year and makes rosé. The livid pink sample I tried from the fermenter this morning tasted just like watermelon. Its texture was surprisingly viscous for such early picked fruit, indicating the finished wine will better handle the sort of extreme chill too many restaurants inflict on pinks and whites.

Oliver's Taranga Shiraz coming through the grape-sorting machine, which removes everything other than your actual berries from the mix. In the past, all sorts of greeblies and vegetation went into the ferments. These clean stalks will go off to the mulch heap ...

... while these babies will go into the fermenter:


Winemaker Charlie Seppelt checking the temperature of a fermenter of Doug Govan's Rudderless Malbec. Man it smelt so sweet and floral!

Meanwhile, the main fermenting hall awaits the onslaught to come ... rock'n'roll!

all photos©Philip White

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