Intensely perfumed with lavender, exotic incense, dark cherry, liquorice and sweet oak notes. The palate is refined yet powerful with seamless, silky varietal tannins that carry the dark cherry, red mulberries, oak spice and bittersweet cocoa flavours. It blossoms with time in glass, revealing more layers and complexity, displaying its distinct character and personality.
Elevate this wine with a food pairing of Greek Rabbit Stew - Kouneli Stifado.
King Valley Vineyard was established in 1977 by the Cavedon family in the cool climate wine region of the King Valley. This unique site has a gently sloping easterly aspect, with red volcanic soils containing decaying basalt on the slope, and the vineyard rises to over 400 metres above sea level. The vineyard is run to best viticultural practice to achieve the highest quality fruit. It relies mainly on natural rainfall, which the underlying basalt retains and assists the vines throughout periods of warm weather, almost drought-proofing in the summer months. The vines run north to south with the high mountain range protecting and shading the western side canopy and fruit on warm to hot days.
VALLEY SELECTION
Our Valley Selection range of small batch wines are created from parcels of fruit carefully selected by our winemakers from a single vineyard. The wines explore the individuality of each variety and our expression of wine styles, while reflecting the unique region in which they are grown. Each bottle captures the essence of the growing season and the vineyard, nurtured by our growers, and then passionately crafted by our winemakers into remarkable and age-worthy wines.
THE WINEMAKING
Harvested in the cool morning on March 10th at a temperature of 10°C, the low-yielding grapes reached optimum flavour and tannin ripeness at 13.5 baumé. The grapes were destemmed and crushed into a static red fermenter for a 5-day cold soak. It was then inoculated with a specific Pinot Noir yeast strain and fermented for 14 days, reaching a temperature peak of 28°C. The must was pumped over the skins daily, allowing a gentle extraction to achieve vibrancy of colour, varietal flavours and tannin expression. The wine was then pressed off the skins into oak barrels, of which 38% were new French oak, with the remainder being one, two, and three-year-old French oak. The wine completed malolactic fermentation in the barrel, allowing oak to be integrated into the wine. During 14 months of oak maturation, the wine was minimally handled to preserve the unique characters that the region and vineyard bestow on this individual wine.
THE VINTAGE
A cold, wet start to the growing season proved challenging in the vineyards with fruit set and ultimately yields lower than average. Summer began with high humidity, but during the ripening period became stable and dry. A balanced and even development of aromas and flavour occurred with fine natural acidity retained across our white varieties. While the quantity of grapes was down in 2024, the quality was fantastic.
