WINEMAKING

Pyrenees Ridge wines are crafted entirely onsite in our new 300 tonne hi-tech winery using predominately traditional winemaking methods. Although the wines are not as truly “handmade” as they used to be, certain aspects of the winemaking process are still very much handmade and hands on.

Following a major setback last year, a much bigger and better winery has been re-built with new hi-tech equipment. The winemaking process has become more efficient and easier to manage now that we have a capacity to process over 200 to 300 tonnes of grapes and store over 400 barrels. We use a 3 tonne airbag membrane press instead of a basket press as we did before, as well as a powerful must pump to empty our open fermenters straight into the press. Another new edition to our equipment is a refrigeration unit that is used to chill down our white wines to cold settle/stabilize. Our winemaking approach is still hands on with meticulous care of the wines.

Each batch of wine is fermented separately in 3 to 5 kL open vat fermenters where they are hand plunged 3 to 4 times daily until the wine has fermented to dryness, then each fermenter is separately pressed off skin and then transferred to tank for settling.
Once the wines have settled and malo lactic fermentation is complete the wine is then cleaned up and then transferred to oak barrels where it is stored and matured for 14 to 20 months until the blending process takes place. All the individual batches of wine are matured separately in barrel, which allows us to have more blending options at a later stage.

Our wines are matured in new and older American and French oak barriques where they are stored for 14 to 16 months. Our Reserve Shiraz is produced from a small parcel of fruit, then fermented separately and allowed to mature in 90% new American and 10% new French oak barriques for 20 or so months prior to bottling.

Winemaker’s notes:

All Pyrenees Ridge red wines, from the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot to the highly acclaimed Reserve Shiraz, have tremendous concentrated fruit flavours and medium to full bodied structure that is so typical of Pyrenees Ridge and the Pyrenees Region generally.
Our Reserve Shiraz is produced from a small parcel of select grapes from an older part of the vineyard. This creates a wine that has slightly more depth of flavour and structure than our very popular Pyrenees Shiraz which is an earlier drinking wine than the Reserve.

Our wines are all made and bottled onsite using a mobile bottling unit, so the only time our wines leave the estate are when they have been purchased by our valued customers.