The Loxton wines are meant to showcase the varietal and the vineyard in which they are grown. The approach is deliberately low tech and non-interventionist in the belief that the ultimate wine character is determined in the vineyard for each given year, and that manipulation of the wine tends to decrease its given uniqueness.

 

Strict attention is given in the vineyard, with vineyard location being of prime importance and the ability to work with the grower and have input on grape quality also being a factor. I work closely with each of the vineyard owners to obtain the highest possible grape quality and then work towards ensuring that from vineyard to bottle, the wine will reflect the very best of these individual vineyard sites.

 

By having long term relationships with the growers and by walking the vineyards during the year, I have identified the different areas based upon soil type and elevation and each f these areas is picked separately.  The grapes are always picked by hand and are sorted as they are picked. Picking is often done at night so that the fruit is delivered as cold as possible and this minimizes spoilage. At the winery the grapes are then hand sorted again prior to destemming. No pumps are used to transfer must and the berries grapes are either shoveled by hand into fermentation tanks, or in the case of bigger lots, and dumped into fermentation tanks using a forklift. Fermentation for red wines is carried out in open top tanks and the fruit is allowed to cold soak for 3-4 days prior to fermentation in order to extract as much as possible from the skins in the absence of any alcohol. To extract color and flavor from the skins during fermentation the floating skins are hand plunged (punchdown) 3-4 times a day. The wine is drained away from the skins and the skins pressed based upon tannin extraction and this can occur prior to the completion of fermentation or with some extended maceration. The wine is settled in tank overnight and then put to barrel with malolactic fermentation completed in barrel. Only French oak barrels are used, and these come from 5-6 different coopers with the percentage of new oak depending upon the wine type. Some wines see no new oak (Rose and Port), while others may see from 15-40% depending on vintage and variety. The wines are then minimally racked in the following summer and bottled when appropriate without fining and with minimal filtration. White grapes are whole cluster pressed with press wine kept separate and the juice immediately transferred to barrel for fermentation. The white wines remain in barrel without racking until the day before bottling when they are racked to tank and bottled without fining.

 

These methods allow me to follow the progression form vineyard to bottle, being as gentle as possible so that vineyard characters remain intact and are not submerged to the winemaking method.