Nomads Garden Fiano

Handmade - Hand Picked - Basket Pressed - Wild Yeast Ferment - No Acid Added - Barrel Aged on Lees

Vineyard ~ Lewis Vineyard, Alpine Valley

Sourced from one of the most passionate salt of the earth growers we know in Brian “Bri” Llewis from his spectacular Greenacres Vineyard in Merriang South. This vineyard is deep in an isolated valley of the sprawling Alpine Valleys GI and such a cool site it is not unusual for it to snow there a couple of times over the winter period.

As with all wines released under the Nomads Garden range input from us in the winery was kept to an absolute minimum. Instead careful attention was paid to working closely with Bri and ensuring the grapes were picked at exactly the right moment to ensure the natural pH and the flavours were just right.

Once handpicked and in the winery the fruit was crushed and then gently whole bunch pressed in our wooden basket press directly to seasoned 5 year old French Oak. Oak of this age will impart very little, if any oak characteristics instead we believe they are the best vessel for wines to ferment and age in. Oak is a natural product that allows the wines to breath and evolve with time, something not possible with tanks. Once the juice was in barrel it was protected with CO2 until the natural yeast indigenous to vineyard took hold and begun the fermentation process, when using natural yeast we expect fermentation to begin with 3-5 days of crushing. Ferments were temperature controlled in our barrel room to stay at approximately 24 degrees Celsius to retain aromatics. Once fermentation was complete the Fiano was allowed 12 months to rest in barrel on its lees (lees are the solids that drop and of the wine post fermentation) to create texture. The wines are then lightly filtered and bottled, before been given at least 3 months post bottling to settle.