Normans Wines is one of the oldest and most respected family names in Australian winemaking. Since 1853, when Jesse Norman planted his first vines in Adelaide, Normans Wines has developed a reputation for premium award winning Australian wines. Normans Wines is one of Australia’s founding winemakers.

The unseasonable rainfall through the summer months of 2016 delayed the onset of veraison and consequently harvesting of the fruit, with our pick pushed back a month later in 2017. The drier weather pattern experienced in March and April produced cool nights and warm days – ideal for both accelerating ripening and suppressing fungal disease. Predominantly mild summer temperatures and a further 79mm of rain in January delayed ripening and the vines continued to show no signs of stress. All this combined for an ideal slow and steady vintage. Fruit was hand selected from the two same vineyards as 2016 then shipped to the winery and worked through the destemmer, the fruit was crushed and had a few days cold soaking, we allowed natural yeast fermentation and used a careful regime of plunging and drained and returns to get the right balance of extraction. The wine was carefully pressed after 10 days on skins and allowed to complete malolactic fermentation prior to barrel aging then selected barrels were bottled with minimal fining or filtration.