Dandelion Chardonnay Twilight of the Adelaide Hills 2023

Whole bunches from our best Chardonnay Vineyard in the heart of the Adelaide Hills were hand-picked in the 2nd week of March, in the twilight, our Chardonnay’s acid sunrise, being the cool of early evening, then destemmed in small batches without crushing the fruit to fill our press exactly.  The free-run juice was then fermented in a small stainless steel tank between 11 and 14 degrees Celsius and then finished fermentation in some new and first-use French Oak Barriques. The wine has a high level of natural acidity, and although bone dry an alcohol of only 12.5%.  This 14th vintage of Twilight of the Adelaide Hills Chardonnay was bottled after 9 months with minimal winemaking artifact to capture the essence and purity of the vineyard.

Dandelion Red Queen of Eden Valley Shiraz 2019

Our Winemaker Elena Brooks crowned Colin Kroehn's Eden Valley Shiraz vineyard as our Red Queen. Its age, altitude, aspect and slopes are the key. Colin tended his beloved Shiraz vines for most of his life's 90 years and our Red Queen is made entirely of his vineyard. Planted in 1912, on a south facing slope of limestone bed rock covered with loamy sands absolutely laden with quartzite, the vineyard survives to this day. The rocky outcrops of quartz are spectacularly coloured with ironstone streaks, and sit over a c.1600 million year old Barossa Complex basement of gneiss and schist. On March 31st whole bunches of flavour ripe Shiraz were hand harvested, then we gently crushed two thirds of the grapes over a third of whole bunch fruit and naturally fermented in open fermenters for eleven days, hand plunged three times a day, before careful basket pressing into half new and half one year old French Oak Barriques to finish fermentation.  After two and a half years maturation and a racking in the same oak, we bottled this eleventh vintage of Red Queen without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of the vineyard. Dandelion Vineyard’s Red Queen will reward cellaring and decanting. Thank you Mr. Kroehn for this legacy.

Dandelion Vineyards

Dandelion Vineyards

Dandelion Vineyards