Tasting Notes for Kalleske TKX2 Sparkling Shiraz from the Winery

We are excited to score a few bottles of this inaugural Sparkling Shiraz from Kalleske.  The name is derived from Tony & Troy Kalleske: TK1 + TK2 = TKX2, and celebrates the 20 vintages that have passed since they started making their own wines. 

Vintage 2021  //  Méthode Traditionnelle  //  Disgorged 2024

Tasting Notes

Colour:
TKX2 is deep purple in colour with a fine mousse.

Aroma:
The inviting aroma expresses a bold, classy wine awaits.  There’s black forest fruits, cedar, chocolate, cherry, liquorice, olive, and savoury spice.

Palate:
The palate is rich, lively and full-bodied.  Dark, juicy fruits abound together with subtle oak complexity.  Natural tannins are fine adding structure and depth.  The mousse is creamy, tying everything together, as well as giving dimension and length.  Gentle residual sweetness is balanced perfectly, providing fullness and rounding out the generous palate.  A long persistent finish completes an exquisite sparkling Shiraz.

Recommended Drinking:
TKX2 can be enjoyed now but will cellar gracefully for 10- 20 years.

Growing Season

Vintage 2021 was an exemplary year with fine wines and good yields.  Growing season rainfall was marginally below average and temperatures were mild ensuring vine canopies remained healthy.  Vintage weather was absolutely perfect throughout, with dry mild-warm days and cool nights ensuring even and steady ripening across all varieties.  There is strong colour and flavour across all the reds along with excellent structure and balance whilst the whites are bright, fresh and elegant.

Vineyard

The Kalleske vineyard is a diverse mix of 120 acres of vines spread over the 500-acre farm.  Shiraz dominates the plantings and multiple Shiraz blocks spanning from 1973 to 1999 were blended to make this wine.  Shiraz from these blocks go into the usual Kalleske Eduard, Greenock and Moppa wines.  Together with the Shiraz a fraction (8%) of Durif was blended for added complexity.  All vines are low yielding and soils are typically shallow sand with excellent clay subsoil.

Winemaking

Following harvest from early March to early April, grapes were destemmed into open-top fermenters.  The musts were fermented using native yeast, with twice daily pump-overs for colour and flavor extraction throughout the 7–14-day fermentations.  The musts were then traditionally pressed and filled to barrel.  The wines were matured in French and American oak hogsheads for a year prior to barrel selection and blending.  At bottling, liqueur de tirage (a wine solution of sugar and yeast) was added and Méthode Traditionnelle was employed whereby the wine underwent secondary fermentation in bottle, capturing the natural carbon dioxide in the bottle to create pris de mousse (effervescence).  The wine was then cellared in the bottle on yeast lees for two years, where autolysis occurred; the yeast cells (lees) slowly broke down, imparting flavour and complexity to the wine as well as refining the bubble size.  Next the wine underwent riddling, whereby the bottle is delicately and gradually rotated with tilted neck down over six weeks to move the sediment into the neck of the bottle.  Then the wine was disgorged, where the neck was frozen, the crown seal removed, and the ‘plug’ of sediment was ejected from the bottle.  Finally, each bottle was topped with a finishing dosage of bespoke estate liqueur Shiraz and capped with a new crown seal

(SKU: KA_TKX2_CV)