Tasting Notes for MOON Marsanne 2024 from the Winery 

This wine is supple and lively, with hints of apple on the nose, and an almost slippery minerality which is quite unusual for our region!

Serve well chilled. It will match well with seafoods and other lightly flavoured dishes.

Winemaking

The wine is made from 100% Biodynamic hand harvested Marsanne grapes, picked in late February at relatively low sugar level to maximise crispness and freshness. We find that the early harvested Marsanne still shows great varietal character, and not a trace of greenness in the flavour.

The grapes were crushed and lightly pressed, chilled to settle out the solids, then racked and allowed to warm and ferment in a stainless steel tank. The temperature was limited to around 16-17˚C to maintain a slow gentle fermentation to dryness. Once dry, the wine was sealed up in the fermentation tank and left on yeast lees for 6 months.

It was then gently gravity bottled with no additions of any sort, and sealed with Diam corks.

Unfiltered 

The wine has not been filtered as we find this compromises the texture. There may still be some yeast cells in the wine which will settle out over time to form a light deposit in the bottom of the bottle. We also have not subjected the wine to the conventional 'cold stabilisation', again to preserve the purity of flavour, and as a result some small tartrate crystals may form. These deposits are quite harmless.

No SO2

Sulphur Dioxide is conventionally added to wine at bottling in order to help protect it against deterioration, primarily by oxidation. Some people are very sensitive to SO2. In some cases it makes them unwell, in others it is simply perceived as unpleasant. By choosing not to add SO2 we avoid these problems, and the wine has a clarity and purity that is otherwise masked. The downside is that the wine will not keep as well, and we recommend drinking it within 6 months to a year from the October 2024 bottling date.

There is no danger in drinking it later than this, and it may well still be good, but we can't be sure. Better to drink it now!

We do intend to release a lightly sulphured version of this wine in due course, and expect that wine to mature and evolve over many years, as have our earlier Marsannes.

Organics and Biodynamics

The vineyard has ben organic since 2005. At the same time, we adopted Biodynamic practices, using the special Biodynamic preparations, and making the vineyard as far as possible a self-contained system. In 2012 we became fully certified Biodynamic by NASAA, both as a vineyard and as a winery.

In the vineyard we encourage the growth of many species of grasses and other plants to create a diverse ecosystem that supports a high population of beneficial insects. These work for us in helping keep the vineyard free of harmful pests and diseases.

We are surrounded by gumtrees, with huge redgums down by the river. The vineyard is home to many hares and kangaroos, which don't bother us, and the occasional wombat which does.

(SKU: MN_Mar_CV)