Cape Jaffa Wines :: Cape Jaffa Wines releases South Australia’s first fully certified biodynamic botrytis wine
Stuck on our sticky – Jaffa Juice returns
Cape Jaffa Wines releases its first fully certified biodynamic botrytis wine
MOUNT BENSON – 10 February 2010: Mount Benson’s founding winery and first fully certified biodynamic winegrower on the Limestone Coast Cape Jaffa Wines (www.capejaffawines.com.au) today released its 2009 La Lune Botrytis Semillon, believed to be the first first fully certified biodynamic botrytis wine produced in South Australia.
The botrytis, the result of naturally wet and humid conditions towards the end of Vintage 2009, was rather difficult to foster in Cape Jaffa’s fully certified biodynamic vineyard.
“A lot of people think that by running a biodynamic vineyard you are going to have mass disease problems most years,” says Derek Hooper, general manager of Cape Jaffa Wines. “This is not the case. We have found that after fourteen years of using biodynamic practices our vineyard has become somewhat naturally resistant to vine diseases such as botrytis and powdery mildew. With careful canopy management we were able to foster and encourage botrytis in a small section of our semillon vineyard.”
Cape Jaffa has successfully trialed other disease control techniques in the last twelve months. In winter 2009, Preparation 500 was mixed in 60-degree water and sprayed onto the trunks and dormant wood of the entire 3.2-hectare chardonnay block, well prior to budburst. The aim of this was to “trick” the mildew spores into germinating prematurely, resulting in a complete reduction of powdery mildew incidents in our chardonnay during this growing season.
“The beauty of the hands-on approach that biodynamic farming allows you leads to a greater understanding of your vineyard. By spending more time with your vines, you get a better feel for what’s going on – problem areas or quality aspects that you like are easily identified and able to be honed in on and even manipulated to suit your desired outcome. Ultimately, you have a greater ability to control many of the issues that face conventional farmers.”
This botrytis wine release has been long awaited since Cape Jaffa’s last 2004 vintage of the wine, playfully named “Jaffa Juice”, picked up the award of Top Wine in the Sweet White Wines category at the 2006 South Australian Wine of the Year awards.
Cape Jaffa’s certified biodynamic La Lune range was released in July 2008 after full biodynamic certification of Cape Jaffa’s Mount Benson vineyard, and has already attracted much interest among consumer and trade customers alike. The show circuit has also responded with the 2007 La Lune Cabernet Sauvignon picking up a gold medal at the 2009 National Cool Climate Wine Show in October last year.
In addition to the new botrytis wine, the La Lune range of wines currently consists of four other wines including a shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz rosé and semillon sauvignon blanc. For inquiries or requests for samples please contact Leah Sourris on 08 8768 5053 or leah@capejaffawines.com.au.
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