Tasting Notes for Kalleske Dodger Tempranillo from the winery

Colour:
The 2024 Dodger Tempranillo is a vibrant maroon colour

Aroma:
Aromatically, it’s lifted and complex, with layers of intrigue. Bursting with notes of garden herbs, wildflowers, warm spice, rusty steel, wet earth, rhubarb, asphalt, mixed berries, and a hint of umami-rich soy sauce

Palate:
The palate is light to medium-bodied, opening with crunchy red cherry fruit, followed by a savoury core of black olives. Firm, steely tannins provide a solid structural backbone, while bright, punchy acidity delivers drive and precision. The finish is long and satisfying, showcasing the varietal character with finesse.

Recommended Drinking: 
Dodger can be enjoyed now or you can cellar confidently over the next eight years (2025 – 2033).

Certified Organic & Biodynamic  |  Vegan Friendly  |  Alcohol: 13.5%  |  Contains 8.0 Standard Drinks  |  Contains Sulphites

Dodger Tempranillo

Since the early 1900s, the ‘dodger’ has been indispensable in the vineyard. The vine dodger is a mechanical weeder that removes weeds from around the vines whilst dodging the vines themselves. In the early years the dodger was pulled by a horse and steered by hand and then in the 1960s the horse was replaced by a tractor. Fundamentally the dodger hasn’t changed much and today it is still used to naturally control the weeds in our vineyards.

Dodger Tempranillo is a single vineyard wine that’s been grown, vintaged and matured on our Kalleske property. Vigilant grape growing, traditional winemaking and maturation in seasoned French oak hogsheads has resulted in a sophisticated, medium bodied Tempranillo displaying classic structure and varietal expression typical of our Kalleske vineyard.

Growing Season

Vintage 2024 was excellent.  Winter and Spring were drier and slightly warmer than average leading to earlier budburst, flowering and veraison.  Summer welcomed refreshing rainfall, average temperatures, with no extreme heat, ensuring the vines flourished with their very balanced crop load and apt canopy leading to steady ripening.  Autumn began warm and finished mild, continuing the consistent ripening of grapes until harvest was finished in mid-Autumn.  The yields are overall average, and the quality is superb.

Vineyard

The single-vineyard Dodger Tempranillo block is the newest variety on the Kalleske property. The hand-pruned vines are low-yielding and are grown in sandy loam soil with quartz and ironstone over deep red clay.

Winemaking

The grapes were picked on March 1^st, 2024, and then destemmed into an open top fermenter. The must was wild-fermented for 14 days with submerged skins via a heading-down screen.  After pressing off skins the Tempranillo was filled to seasoned French oak hogsheads where it underwent natural malolactic fermentation in barrel. Dodger matured in barrel for a year prior to bottling.

(SKU: KA_TEM_CV)