The J.E range is dedicated to fruit from our own Ngeringa vineyards. Being a small winery and yet being painstakingly particular with the quality of our fruit and final wine batches, we find ourselves with the dilemma of a barrel or two each year being stubborn outsiders to the style we aim to bottle under our NGERINGA label. And so we have some fun assembling our J.E wines.

100% estate-grown Syrah from our three vineyards: Summit and Rufus in Mt Barker and Illuma in Nairne. Made deliberately to be a more approachable wine than our NGERINGA Syrah, the J.E Syrah is often selected for its juicier fruit expression, gentler tannin profile and approachability when young.

VINTAGE: The 2011 growing season was marked across the Adelaide Hills region by heavy rains and subsequently high disease pressure. NGERINGA was fortunate to weather the difficulties well with reduced yields but lovely fruit displaying characteristic cool-climate textures and flavours. Winter 2010 set in early and cold with frequent, drenching rains filling dams and delaying the onset of the growing season. Spring and early summer remained uncommonly cool, punctuated by periods of rain requiring prudent canopy management and yield reduction. The summer heat was all but non-existent other than a brief spell towards the end of January. Instead, days were often sunny but frequently no more than warm, with the evenings consistently cool. Ripening maintained a slow, steady pace resulting in harvest being set back by nearly a month. In the end, the wines of this difficult vintage are a testament to the hardiness of the vines: textural, tight, racy and aromatic. Our vigilance was rewarded.

WINEMAKING: A long, slow-ripening vintage with very small yields. 100% destemmed. Shorter macerations than usual. Two years in barriques and larger-format barrels. Wild fermentation, no enzymes, oxidative handling pre-fermentation, spontaneous malolactic fermentation, gentle extraction, warmer fermentation, minimal temperature control. No fining. Estate bottled. Small amounts of sulphites added before bottling.

(SKU: 1419)