Ministry of Clouds Kintsugi 2020
Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of ‘golden joinery’, the creation of enduring beauty from broken fragments of ancient pottery as they are pieced together with lacquer laced with gold. It befits a desire to meticulously blend only the very best parcels of old vine fruit from a single year. Kintsugi is thus the best Southern Rhone inspired wine that Bernice and Julian can create each year, no matter its components.
One parcel of 85 % Grenache, 10 % Mataro and a splash of Shiraz, hand-picked on 16 March 2018 and co-fermented. 40 % whole bunches, the balance destemmed but not crushed to retain whole berries. Native yeast ferment under a submerged cap for 21 days. This parcel was then blended with a second small parcel of bush-vine Grenache from 87 year-old vines and matured on fine lees in a mix of inert tanks and old oak for 18 months. 14.2 % alc/vol.
‘An elegant, but deeply fruited wine, showing aromatic floral red fruit lift, and spice from old vine Grenache, built upon intense blue fruits and violets of dry grown Mataro and Shiraz. Layered and long this wine exhibits a tightly wound core of dense red berried crunchy fruit, framed by persistent sandy tannins, and bright acidity.’
- Bernice Ong and Julian Forwood, Founders and Winemakers.
