2022 Scintilla More Than White Pinot Grigio

WINEMAKER: James Madden
REGION: Adelaide Hills, SA
VARIETY: Pinot Grigio
VITICULTURE: Organic/Biodynamic

There’s nothing that Pinot Gris seems to love more than being massaged in order to see the full potential of its aromatics and its length. Here with the skin contact and careful balancing, Gris puts on its dress and twirls into an orange wine. The phenolics are present, settling into this tea like dryness that feels both fine and savoury. It’s copper blush shimmers with tropical ginger, pickled watermelon and flourishes of strawberry and rhubarb. A perfect textural pourer for winter.

Whole bunch directly pressed Pinot Gris to 800L terracotta huevo for primary fermentation and ageing on full solids. Almost half the wine had forty days sitting on skins. The rest was destemmed to stainless tank open top fermented for 7 days. Gentle wetting of the cap twice, sometimes thrice a day. Once primary fermentation calms it is closed with lid and left for 2 months on skins. Pressed and syphoned to old french puncheon. Gently racked off lees before winter. Racked and blended, bottled in summer.

Sommelier-turned-winemaker James Madden has worked with the likes of James Erskine (Jauma) and Tom Shobbrook. He now shares a shed in the Basket Range with Alex Schulkin (The Other Right) to produce his own minimal intervention wines. All grapes are organic and/or biodynamic, handpicked and processed by shovel & fork. Wines are transferred by siphon using gravity, unfined, unfiltered and always zero adds.