This year has been a busy one, as you can see from a few snippets from the year below. So, in no particular order;
Vintage 2019
Vintage seems so long ago now, it is hard to remember what happened. I guess the grapes ripened, we picked them, fermented them and then either sent them to barrel or to bottle, depending on colour, variety and intended style. We seem to do this every year. My abiding memory is of the big old yellow Hyster (with the S handwritten in texter on the front) getting bogged in front of the winery. No-one owned up as I recall. Joch reckons 2019 was good, but with reduced volumes due to the drier than average summer.
Joch K-pop sensation
We sent Joch off to Korea to a big trade show organised by Dan who handles our export to Korea. We have a super importer who loves our Spring Seed ‘Gypsy’, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. We sent Joch to show Korea our Springs Road Kangaroo island wines, and he you can see him doing just that. Wearing his trusty King Gee blue work shirt, he looks as if a mysterious force picked him off a tractor in Willunga and set him down in Seoul at a trade tasting.
New online wine shop
After years of putting it off and doing anything but work on this project (clean linen cupboard, sharpen pencils, pick fluff off jumpers etc) I finally galvanised myself and we made a new online wine shop, with a very powerful ‘back end’. This means nothing to you, our lovely customer, but lots to us, and may in fact result in improved service for you! All wines from Battle of Bosworth, Spring Seed Wines (from McLaren Vale) and our new Springs Road wines from Kangaroo Island are available to purchase from the www.bosworthwines.com.au super site! Yippee
534th Anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth
Every year on the 22nd August someone reminds us of the anniversary of the English battle (where Richard of York was killed – the last English king to die in battle), and every year we discuss making something like the Carpark Cabernet (remember Richard III’s body was discovered underneath a Leicestershire pay and display council car park?) and then we forget again, till the next year. I guess we drew a fairly long bow in making the connection between this decisive stoush of the War of the Roses and Joch’s family name (Bosworth), so we don’t discuss things historical too much. Till next year!
5-star Halliday Wine Companion
Battle of Bosworth got 5 stars in this year’s (2020) edition of the Halliday wine Companion, which makes me happy. This means we make awesome wine. You can be the judge 😊 It gives us the right to put this logo on our website, which is nice.
Goodbye Petit Verdot
Joch finally got the shits with the Petit Verdot, a late ripening variety which hails from the Bordeaux region of France. It’s great for Bordeaux the region, which has a very variable climate; if everything goes to pot, you can rely on the PV, because it ripens about 2 weeks later than everything else. Well, no more, the unkindest cut of all was made on the 3 acres we had on the hill near cellar door. More Shiraz anyone? Because that’s what Joch’s grafted it to.
Another day another wine
Joch has done his best impersonation of Chester Osborn from d’Arenberg (they have about 70 + wines, maybe more?) and indulged his love of the old block of Semillon at Edgehill, by making a single vineyard, early picked Hunter Valley-esque dry white wine. So, another wine eh Joch? There’s nothing like production lead marketing (I have heard rumour that there is a barrel of fortified Shiraz sitting in the winery…)
New wine for Springs Road
While we are on the subject of new wines, we released a new Springs Road KI wine called ‘Terre Napoleon’. It is named after the first detailed map of Southern Australia (‘Carte Generale de la Terre Napoleon’) which was drawn by Baudin’s cartographer, Freycinet. Napoleon is a sublime Shiraz and is a selection of Joch’s favourite barrels from the 2017 vintage. It comes with its own rather splendid gift box. Usually we only ship wines in multiple of 6 (and obviously prefer to send in multiples of 12!), but because we are good types, we will send this wine as a single in its box because it will make a magnificent gift.
Springs Road Kangaroo Island Wine reviews
We got some awesome reviews for our Springs Road Kangaroo Island from US/ Aussie duo James Sucking and Nick Stock on www.jamessuckling.com. 95 points for the Springs Road Ki Shiraz 2017 and 93 for the Springs Road KI Cab! Yippee
Spring Seed ‘Forget-me-not’ Sauvignon Blanc Semillon
Joch managed to get his noggin into the USA’s big hitting wine magazine, Wine Spectator with our juicy little Bordeaux-style white blend the Forget-me-not SBS. Great review too! (better points than Bindi and Grosset 😊)
Visitors from the West
The team from Grape and Grain (who sell our wine in Western Australia) came over in the depths of winter; it was chucking it down and freezing. That didn’t stop us from making them go out and sing for their supper by pruning some of the Road Shiraz. Maria was an awesome pruner, but when Joch offered her a job pruning all winter, she didn’t seem that eager. She seemed far keener to repair to the Salopian Inn for refreshments. Joch also took them through some of the 2019 barrels of Shiraz from both the Willunga vineyards and the Island as well as a cheeky look at the aforementioned fortified Shiraz… which I had up until this moment thought was a myth. Apparently not.
New sausage dog
Finally, and probably the most important news of all, we have a new (6 months old) Sausage Dog, Tigger the standard Dachshund, who came from all the way from Lewiston north of Adelaide. For those that remember Connie the black and tan standard sausage, Tigger is chalk to Con Con’s cheese. She is extremely friendly, sometimes to the point of wee-ing on your shoes. Look out! Even Joch loves her and he was never a fan of the Conster, mainly because she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Uncle Oscar the Labradoodle has been a very patient babysitter, bless him, though we did notice Oscar did learn how to growl when the puppy was hanging off his beard. Welcome Tigger, customer service dog!
That’s all for now!
Cheers