2023 Parley Diamond Dreams Fume Blanc
WINEMAKER: Joss, Mel & Sarah
REGION: Adelaide Hills, SA
VARIETY: Sauvignon Blanc
VITICULTURE: Organic
NOSE: Struck-match, flint, elderflower habanero. PALATE: Pineapple, mineral.
A generous fruit profile with a savoury edge and lengthy acid finish. Texturally this wine is a real delight with subtle varietal characters and a flinty reduction from the barrel fermentation. Neutral oak has preserved the primary fruit with the vineyards natural acid retention the character that brings it all together. Super fresh and vibrant this wine shows another side to Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc.
Sauvignon Blanc was wholebunch pressed using two press cycles (Champagne cycle and Textural White) before separating free run and pressings to give us 4 separate profiles to work with. After each portion was cold settled overnight we racked into a combination of seasoned barriques and hogs heads for fermentation. The ferments took around 14 days to go dry dry with barrels getting topped out for elevage with some lees stirring on selected barrels. After 8 months in barrel the final blend was composed of a barrel selection of majority free-run portions of both press cycles, as well as a barrel of pressings for texture. Bottled in November of 2023 with 1600 bottles produced.
To ‘parley’ is to hold a conference with opposing sides to discuss terms. As a team of three we got really good at that. We were all wearing many hats at the start of the 2021 vintage - Mel, a brilliant student was in her third year of Viticulture and Oenology at The University of Adelaide, working for Commune of Buttons, Son of Dot Drinks and a mother to be. Sarah was running The Summertown Aristologist and working with Les Fruits. And Joss, at one point, balancing 4 simultaneous jobs and a vintage at Gentle Folk.
Needless to say we needed one another to get things done and swift decision making became our forte. Finding time in our already overcomplicated schedules, we made wine and managed to do it with finesse. For the last year we have been continuously bouncing off one another, discussing and seeking solutions to obstacles and finding consonance in our decisions. We suppose in essence, we are one big Parley.