Pinot Noir

Give or take, this is how we go about things. 

We identify the few best rows in the vineyard.  We reduce the yields as low as we can go and do what we can during the growing season to make sure we grow quality fruit with intensity.  We hand pick.  Once at the winery, we destem most of the grapes to a small open fermenter, but we like to retain some whole bunches for added tannins and complexity. The wine is pressed and racked to French oak barriques, across a variety of ages and toastings, and then racked from barrel to barrel.  Our wine then spends about nine months in barrel and is bottled without fining.

Our pinot noir displays a distinctively varietal nose, with strawberry, beetroot and hints of dried herbs.  It has a soft and gentle palate but, as all good pinot should be, is mouth-filling with a gentle edge of late palate tannin.  It will drink well now but, with its excellent Adelaide Hills acidity, the wine will, with time, develop the ‘forest floor’ notes that makes pinot with age such a delicious drink.  

We don't make it for them, but our wine always fares well with the reviewers.  Indeed, our 2016 won a silver medal this year in the Australian and New Zealand Boutique Wine Show (chaired by Huon Hooke).

James Halliday loved the 2016, giving it 92 points:

“Quintessentially Adelaide Hills in its wood-smoky, varnished sort of way, this is a good pinot.  Bing cherry and cedar, too, seep across the bow of gently astringent tannins, flecked with some whole cluster briar and cardamom. This should expand nicely in the mid term, ‘25.”

Australia's Wine Business Magazine also enjoyed the wine, likewise scoring it at 92 points:

"A delight to taste this. Seamless flow of cool, red cherry juice spiked with faint spice and light herbal detail. The palate a pillowy spread of silky pinot noir, gently staining the mouth with sweet fruit long after each sip. Pretty stuff."

Winereviewer consistently awards our wine in the 90s and had this to say about the 2016, awarding it 91 points:

"A medium red with lighter hues towards the rim, the nose strikes a balance between aromatic yet savoury stem characters and varietal cherry, with time there is a touch of undergrowth that comes through.

Produced from a single vineyard in the Lenswood sub-region of Adelaide Hills and crafted by the talented Peter Leske this is a consistently good performer with the 2016 vintage no different.

The wine is a fuller expression of Pinot Noir when compared to previous vintages of the wine which speaks to the 2016 growing season that produced bigger, richer and more fruit forward wines than in previous years. The wine still maintains it’s varietal definition and has the structure to evolve well.

In terms of colour it is a light red with ruby hues, the nose gives a combination of dark cherry and beetroot with an impression of undergrowth and spice somewhere in the background.

The palate is expansive with mouth filling dark cherry that slowly shows it’s savoury side with a continual build of fine, drying and earthen tannins that take this wine to dark fruited and sullen place with a lingering note of spice giving contrast.

A well made wine that will undoubtedly reward years in the cellar."

Our 2016 Pinot Noir has also won the Boutique Winemakers Silver award and the Adelaide Wine Show Bronze award.

We hope you enjoy it!

Chardonnay

We make our chardonnay with the same attention to detail as our pinot noir. 

We have reduced the yields significantly, and we select the best grapes from the best sites, which we hand pick (in the cool of the evening).  We whole-bunch pressed and fermented in the barrel. The wine is then racked off the lees to tank, heat and cold stabilised and gently filtered prior to bottling. 

We make what we believe will be a fine example of an Adelaide Hills chardonnay.  It has a lovely straw colour, and throws a complex but youthful nose, with notes of nectarine from the fruit and a blend of creamy, yeasty, nutty depth from maturation on lees in fine French oak.  Fresh, zesty, with a fine finish. 

James Halliday likes our chardonnay too:

“Tight, tangy and energetic, this chardonnay boasts serious intention.  Handpicked at night, the fruit is pristine.  The oak, attractive.  The wine redolent of stone fruits and leesy, nutty pick up.  90 points. 

Winereviewer say this about our 2016 chardonnay, complimenting the wine with a 94 point rating:

"There are a number of 2016 Chardonnay releases starting to roll in with this release from Collalto amongst the best I’ve tried of the vintage to date. It’s still youthful, but has some real class that will show itself in years to come. The nose is a floral expression of white peach, melon and richer cashew.

This is a chardonnay of great balance with an underlying web of finely filamented acidity. Varietal stone fruits have an edge to them in terms of both the lithe citrus drive and an almond meal richness the is seamlessly integrated. The wine finishes with purity of peach but there is a lingering note of leesy richness that suggests this will grow into something special over time."

Our 2016 Chardonnay has also won the Sydney Wine Show Bronze award. 

The 2017 did the same, and picked up a Silver medal at the Australian Small Winemakers Show.

What more is there to say, save that we hope that you enjoy it?