Kalleske Buckboard Durif 2019 Tasting Notes from the winery

The Kalleske vineyard and farm was established at Greenock in the Barossa’s North-West in 1853. For more than a century, the horse drawn ‘buckboard’ was indispensible on the farm. The buckboard buggy transported not only people but hauled produce and supplies to and from the farm, including countless loads of grapes. In the mid 1900s the horse was replaced with a motor and then the buckboard further evolved into a flat bed truck and eventually to the modern ute. Buckboard Durif is a single vineyard wine that’s been grown, vintaged and matured on the Kalleske property. Vigilant grapegrowing, traditional winemaking and maturation in new and seasoned American oak hogsheads has resulted in a powerful, full-bodied wine of great flavour and intensity.

GROWING SEASON

Quality from 2019 is stunning. It was a warm and extremely dry growing season with rainfall down significantly (39%), making it one of the driest years in the past century. Summer was 3 degrees warmer than average. Yields were impacted by the dry season, leading to smaller berries and bunches. Importantly quality is brilliant producing richly flavoured, intense wines.

VINEYARD

Buckboard Durif is sourced from a single vineyard on the Kalleske property. The hand-pruned vines are low-yielding and are grown in shallow, sandy loam soil over superb deep red clay, providing ideal conditions for Durif.

WINEMAKING

The grapes were picked on April 4th and then destemmed into an open top fermenter. The must was native-yeast fermented for 9 days on skins with hand pump-overs twice a day. After pressing off skins the Durif was filled to a mix of 25% new and the balance used American oak hogsheads. The wine underwent natural malolactic fermentation in barrel. The Durif was matured in barrel for twelve months prior to bottling.

TASTING NOTES

2019 Buckboard Durif is thick purple-black in colour. The aroma is intense and uplifting with liquorice, stewed plum, ripe cherry, chocolate, cola, coffee, cinnamon spice and beetroot. On the full-bodied palate the wine is massively concentrated. Every facet is deep and dense. Ripe black fruits dominate along with dark chocolate. The natural tannins are immense adding a refreshing dryness to the ripe fruit as well as a bold structure and backbone. This is a heady, high volume wine completed by an equally intense and long finish. Buckboard is a compelling and seductive Barossa Durif that can be enjoyed now or over the next decade.

(SKU: KA_DUR_19)