2018 Wines

The Outback is a 100% Barossa Shiraz made with premium grapes harvested from the Barossa valley.  Pronounced bah-RAH-suh or bah-ROH-suh (both are correct), Barossa valley produces some of Australia’s finest grapes.

This 100% Barossa Valley Shiraz was aged with oak that was infused with Eagle Rare and Booker’s, both fine bourbons.

The  label for this production was inspired by 1880s sketches of the Australian outback by Tommy McRae, whose “Spearing the Kangaroo” is one of the most well-known. 

And while we don’t think you should go around spearing kangaroos, we do think you should score a bottle of this bourbon edition of The Outback!

 With the success of Surfer Girl, our California Chardonnay, we searched for another beachy place where Chardonnay was grown. It didn’t take long. As one of the top producers of Chardonnay, Australia also has, well, beaches! So, we came up with this — The Australian Surfer Girl. Creative, huh?

The Australian Surfer Girl is barely kissed with French Oak, used during the primary fermentation process. You might sense a slight bit of oak on the nose and vanilla on the finish.

For our label, we wanted to continue our line of Surfer Girl Chardonnays, so we chose another from the Spellbound by the Sea (© 2016 by Claire Britcliffe) collection, of a surfer girl carrying her board.

So, grab an Australian Surfer Girl, snag your board, and dream about shooting the curl!

 

 

Trio is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Zinfandel in the New World style. Fermented with French and American oak adds hints of vanilla to red berries and black cherries in the nose. Sweet flavors of ripe raspberry, chocolate, and cherry are in the finish.

For our label, we thought about famous Trios. Pablo Picasso’s Three Musicians was a perfect choice. It turned out that Picasso created two versions of the painting. The one we used hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as my home office (a framed mass-production print I’ve had for years). Completed near Paris, France in 1921, it exemplifies the Synthetic Cubist style. The painting features a Harlequin (comic servant character), a Pierrot (character of pantomime), and a monk, who are generally believed to represent Picasso, along with poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob.

Hauora (pronounced How-orah) is the Maori philosophy for health unique to New Zealand. It comprises four dimensions of wellbeing: Taha Tinana (physical), Taha Hinengaro (emotional), Taha Whanau (social), and Taha Wairua (spiritual).

Naturally, we think that wine is good for us in all of these dimensions. When we located a New Zealand health postage stamp, we knew it would be perfect for the label.

The idea for health stamps in New Zealand originated in the 1920s, where half the proceeds went to disease cure or prevention and the rest to promoting public health. So, for a stamp purchased for 2d, one penny would go toward postage; and the other toward public health.

This New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is certainly healthy — with notes of gooseberry, asparagus, passion fruit, melon and citrus. Many of these aromas are carried through to the palate. Serve with goat cheese, asparagus, summer salads, chicken, sardines, and cedar planked sockeye salmon.

Reprising their roles with new year vintages are some of our most popular wines.