Pat-Nat Sparkling Nebbiolo 2020

Winemaker notes:
Extremely fine bead. Gorgeous bronze to a very pale apricot hue. Dried roses, sherbet, nettle and lemon rind aroma.

The palate has wild energy - the first thing I notice is the acidity which anchors like a javelin very deep in the palate, a taut line strung along the tongue to the front of the mouth where little strawberries and tart blackberries hang out. There’s a creaminess throughout, zaps of acidity cut the cream up and down. It's a wine about long shape and texture and small berries. There is an overriding sense of rust and iron. It’s very pretty, very Colbinabbin and very delicious.

This release of 2021 Colbinabbin Sparkling Nebbiolo is still a work in progress. It was bottled using native suspended yeast, the different levels of lees and yeast in each bottle have led each bottle to uniqueness. My preference is for those that have disgorged perfectly clean, where the line of acidity and brightness of fruit is most clear.

This was a trial bottling using a method of fermentation management to allow for effective triage bottling of older dry base wine without the use of lab cultivated yeast.
In order to perform the trial 100l of juice was kept in the freezer after pressing while the remainder fermented in a single old hogshead. The wine was topped regularly and achieved dryness in early spring 2021. The base wine was then racked to tank in spring while the frozen juice was allowed to defrost once the weather had warmed enough to facilitate the bottle fermentation.

As the juice began to ferment naturally, oxygen was introduced through fish tank bubblers to build large yeast populations with thick cell walls.
The base wine was blended slowly into the juice over a week or so so as to not shock the yeast mid fermentation.

The bottling was very time precious and unfortunately coincided with the evening of the end of victorian lockdown number 3678. Rightly I was absent from the winery while eating duck on Victoria st. Thus, some sugar was added the next morning to reestablish the correct concentration for bottle condition. Bottled 23rd October 2021.
The bottles were kept warm initially then aged on lees until disgorgement 31st of Aust 2022. (10 months on lees)

There was zero dosage and no additions other than the sugar top up.

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