Greetings from Bannockburn,
As we write in early July, the last couple of months have been busy for us at Bannockburn Vineyards. Out in the vineyard, the winter has been arid and moderate in temperature, with some fresh cool mornings and the occasional shower, but overall, the soils need some hydration. The vineyard team has been making great progress in the pruning and maximizing this time of the year.
With the very successful release of our 2023 estate wines and associated travel and events that go along with a big release now behind us, we are pleased to say the wines have been received amazingly well. The press and journalism around these releases were impressive and well representative of the wines themselves - full notes on the News & Reviews page of the website. We still have some of these wines available on our website. However, the Gamay is all gone following our last newsletter, the Pinot Noir has effectively sold out nationally, and the Chardonnay is not far behind.
On to the release of our single vineyard wines; it is always a wonderful time of year, and from the 2023 vintage, we are so pleased to offer SRH and Serré. We have spoken in previous mail of the challenges we dealt with in the 2023 season. However, the resulting wines have far exceeded our expectations. These two single vineyard wines represent not only the individuality of these sites but are among the best we have ever produced from each site. The 2023 SRH has more freshness, tautness and linearity than is typical for this wine, but certainly not for lack of complexity and flavour. The purity is impressive, and the depth of flavour will build over time. The tension will carry this wine well into the future, and it will likely provide compelling drinking over the journey. The 2023 Serré is so pretty, lifted from the outset, and very aromatic with a full array of heady fruit, spice, earth and oak aromas. The palate is elegant, pure and structured, and the earthy, savoury flavours have wonderful clarity; again this will benefit from cellar time. These single vineyard wines will be released to the world on August 1st, but as mailing list subscribers you have first access in advance of the official date. See below for more substantial notes on the vineyards and production, as well as some glowing journalist reviews. Or, you can visit the online store directly here.
We have also recently bottled the first of the wines from our 50th Anniversary vintage 2024, and we will release the first of these wines via this mailing list in September. The quality is fantastic, and we are very excited to see the response to the first of the vintage. We appreciate the support of our loyal mailing list, and it is always nice to see so many of the same names pop up each time we send out an email.
Thanks again for your ongoing support. We certainly hope you enjoy this latest release as much as we do. We will be in touch again in Spring.
Cheers,
Bannockburn Vineyards.