NV The Peppermint Paddock Sparkling Chambourcin

© Judy Dunn

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"Fascinating wine- and quite delightful. It’s full of glossy, charming, dark, cherry-like flavour, but bolted to these are notes of sap, ink, chocolate and fresh, slightly unripe plums. I mean all of these descriptors in a positive sense. It’s a refreshing wine, yet complex and immediately appealing. It’s a beautiful colour and a beautiful drink."

Surrounded by peppermint gums, the block that was replanted in 1989 to Chambourcin, which is a hybrid variety, has proven itself as a successful variety for red wine production. When the fruit is picked fully ripe it retains high levels of natural acidity during fermentation and its flavour profile stays very dry. The Peppermint Paddock Chambourcin possesses all the hallmarks of the variety; an abundance of colour, flavour, tannin and acid, perfect for a sparkling red wine.

Upon release this wine exhibits a deep appearance of vibrant black, crimson-purple mousse with a fine persistent bead that looks simply inviting.
The aroma is initially restrained but as it opens up the level of fruit richness and concentration becomes quite obvious. The aromas are dry, dominated with a mix of liquorice and spiced plum pudding notes with a sweet seductive array of small red berries such as mulberries and raspberries. As the wine further opens up really super concentrated red fruit characters develop such as maraschino cherry, prune juice and boysenberry. The palate is cool, rich and dry and extremely refreshing with an abundant red fruit flavours, mixed with dried herb notes and edges of tarry tannins and mineral-like acidity. The finish is dry but with plenty of strong red fruit flavours that linger for some time, which is just what a wine with this sort of concentration should have.
Delicious drinking now but this wine has the capacity to bottle age, in which the level of richness will increase as the fruit and tannins further combine. If drinking now, it works a treat with anything from a rich spicy dish such as a curry that has plenty of heat, or just on its own.

Each batch of fruit received is gently crushed in our gentle Demoisy crusher so as much of the berries as possible remain whole. The must was then transferred to our open fermenters where the skins are permanently submerged beneath the free run juice. The must was headed down and received no plunging or pumping over while the juice was fermenting on its skins for up to 14 days before basket pressing. Pressed Viognier skins were also added to some of the Chambourcin ferments to co-ferment together at a concentration level of 15% per volume which was eventually back blended to 5% upon assemblage.

As the wine is a non-vintage the base wine is from recent Chambourcin vintages, blended with an assemblage of bottled reserve wines from vintages back to 1996. The assemblage of reserve wines was then added prior to tirage for the secondary fermentation. Finally, the wine was separated from its lees and liqueured with d’Arenberg Vintage Fortified Shiraz completing the dosage process prior to packaging.