A first for us is a project I have been waiting and waiting too evolve, and finally release. The idea behind Ottantotto is to make the best wine I can from the tiny amount of fruit these old vine trees can give. In our first harvest of the 2019 Ottantotto we managed to find about 650 kilograms of fruit over the 2.2 hectares planted. With the tiny berries and loads of stalks this works out to be about 2hl or 200 liters / Ha. The vines are very low yielding, planted 88 years prior in the sands of Vine Vale. What results are some tiny berries on little stalks that give me some of the most beautiful fine tannins I have seen in fruit since returning from Italy. This wine like a picture of Cindy Crawford taken in a bathroom stall in New York in 1989, may be admired at first glance or become something iconic. I hope it can do both. Just shy of 3 months on skins in a slow open fermentation, building tannins and then softening them while the alcohol produced, draws some brilliant bitterness from the seeds. For me its all about the beautiful tannins and this wild old vineyard not giving up. I hope you find a time and a place to enjoy this Future Classic.