2024 Aristotelis Ke Anthoula Sonnyboy
WINEMAKER: Tony Zafirakos & Maddie Park-Neilson
REGION: South Pambula, NSW
VARIETY: Muscat of Alexandria, Vermentino
VITICULTURE: Organic
Zibibbo and Vermentino from the red soils and warm climate of Riverland, the 2023 is juicy as ever, but with a little more restraint owing to yet another cool and wet year. For us, it represents a more mature take on previous years while retaining the approachability our customers have always loved about this wine.
The fruit was destemmed and fermented on its skins for 5 weeks. It was then gently basket pressed to a combination of amphora (40%) and old barrels (60%) and left to mature. By taking some free run and keeping plunging to a minimum, we emphasise the skinsy flavour without extracting too much tannin for a damn exciting aromatic orange wine.
Without a doubt, this wine has become a cult favourite, winning over natural wine enthusiasts and novices alike, and is a great introductory orange wine to people who are unfamiliar with the style.
Aristotelis Ke Anthoula started as a family pastime. Having migrated from rural greece in the early 80s, Aristotelis and Anthoula longed for the feeling of home so they started making their own wine in a garage in the beachside suburbs of Sydney. From the beginning, all their wines were made entirely by hand (and foot) using only grapes, with no additives, no filtration or fining and no pumps or machinery.
All fruit is hand harvested and farmed with care. Our wines are still crafted from grapes alone with the aid of very little machinery. They are carefully made by hand and laboriously fussed over to extract maximum flavour and ensure they are high quality and stable. Natural, wild yeasts are used for fermentation, and there are no chemicals or preservatives added at any time. All of our wines are unfiltered and unfined and to this day we have never added (nor had a need for adding) any sulphur to our wines.