Region: Australia - South Australia - Barossa
Grapes: 100% Cinsault
Alcohol: 12%
Notes on the Wine
A fragrant and floral nose of fresh rosella and cherry blossom. On the palate, the wine is light on its feet, juicy but fresh, with ultra soft tannins. Flavors of tart raspberry, lilly pilly (a native stone fruit reminiscent of sour plum), saltbush, and pickled watermelon rind. Light and gulpable, yet complex with lots of interest.
Clean fruit picked on March 17th. Grapes hand-picked and transported to Torquay, Victoria overnight. Rested for 24 hours in cool sun. Fully destemmed into open-top fermenters, where a wild ferment commenced. Daily punch-downs, one rack and return with aggressive foot-stomping, and racked after alcoholic fermentation into 5 year-old puncheons. Wines went through full malolactic fermentation, and received 60 ppm of sulfur at the end of it. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Schliebs Family Farm is a biodynamically-grown vineyard with 50-70 year-old cinsault vines in the sandy Vine Vale subregion of the Barossa. Schliebs Family Farm is owned and maintained by Wayne Ahrens, who makes his own wine under the Small Fry label.
Notes on the Producer
Jonathan Ross has touched all sides of the wine industry. He started out washing dishes and bussing plates while in school, before launching himself into restaurants full time. Jon devoted himself to wine studies, eventually working as the head sommelier at Eleven Madison Park in New York City for more than five years, part of the team that took the restaurant to #1 on the San Pellegrino 50 Best list. A job opportunity for Jon’s wife Jane took them both to Australia, where Jon landed handily on his feet, working for the Rockpool Group as the beverage director for their Melbourne and Perth premium restaurants.
After passing the prestigious Master Sommelier exam in 2017, Jon began to indulge his winemaking interests, first realized while working harvests in the Finger Lakes of upstate New York. He worked harvest with Mac Forbes in the Yarra Valley in 2018 and decided to buy a few grapes of his own that year. He purchased a couple tons of shiraz off the Bannockburn Estate vineyard, a limestone drenched site planted in the mid-1980’s by Gary Farr. He did some gentle foot stomping, kept a selection of clusters whole, and then left the wine to its own devices in a large puncheon.
Jon has since made two other wines: a cinsault form the sandy Vine Vale region of Barossa and a pinot gris from the Mornington Peninsula. Jon’s interest is in finding exceptional sites across Australia, picking the grapes to allow for optimum expression, and doing little in the winery. Jon and Jane moved back to the US in 2020, just after Jon put that year’s shiraz, cinsault, and pinot gris to rest in barrel. They’ll return for bottling and 2021 harvest, and in the meantime are devoting themselves to launching LEGEND.
