WINELIST No. 65 Dear Wine List Member, As we write this newsletter, the sun is shining and the Piccadilly Valley is a vibrant, almost fluorescent green. It’s been a cool and wet start to the growing season in this part of the world, so we are hoping for the sunshine to continue from here on in to ensure the 2023 vintage continues the good run we’ve had in recent times. We are fresh from releasing the 2021 vintage of the Estate and Reserve Pinot Noirs. It’s been a pleasure to show these wines alongside the Grower Single Vineyard from the Dean’s Sprigg Road block. 2021 was a unicorn vintage, delivering both healthy yields and outstanding quality, so it will be nice to show these wines over summer before they inevitably sell out. The next few months will be a great time to visit cellar door, with a full suite of Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays available for tasting. Speaking of new releases, the 2016 vintage of our Sparkling Shiraz is now available. With fruit sourced from the famed Wendouree vineyards in Clare, the base wine is matured in large format oak for four years. The wine is then tiraged and re-fermented in bottle via the traditional method and disgorged after one year. It’s such a unique wine and perfect for this time of year. We are in the fortunate position whereby demand has exceeded supply and earlier this year we had to cap our Martini Club and start a waitlist membership. We want to ensure that in low yielding years (like the upcoming 2022 vintage) that we can supply our members with their allocation of Estate and Reserve. Pinot Noir is a fickle variety and crop sizes can vary greatly season to season. Given that Estate and
Reserve are made exclusively from estate fruit, we need to safeguard our members from the leaner years. Waitlist Members will be promoted to a full membership as places become available. Lastly, we are excited to report that we have signed a lease on the Bowhouse vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley. It’s one of the most elevated and steepest blocks in the sub-region, which presents a serious challenge for our pruners and pickers, but gives us great options to continue to push the quality of the Piccadilly Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. We would love to see you at the cellar door over summer. Please book online to ensure that we can host you at www.ashtonhills.com.au Cheers, Liam and Liza