BALLYCROFT VINEYARD AND CELLARS
2016 Small Berry Cab Sav
New French Oak Tasting Notes
wine Companion
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
A prodigiously rich and intoxicating wine, literally and metaphorically.
Comprised largely of pressings, this is a svelte ride of piercing blackcurrant flavours.
The oak is but an echo, buried in the morass. A smooth sheath of cocoa, vanilla, graphite and black plum, splayed across milk chocolate tannins that melt while drinking. A smooth operator with little shame, but plenty of cheek and glory.
Published 1st August 2020
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2017 Small Berry Durif Tasting notes Wine Companion
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
Physiologically a sturdy variety, durif can pack a wallop of flavour meshed to firm, implacable tannins. Their management often makes or breaks a wine, particularly when crafted as a
full-bodied expression. Here, a deft extraction: four pump overs per day for 9 days, the choice of oak and length of elevage (28 months in shaved American) proves a winning approach. Burly and firm, sure. But suave, class and long, the persistence of blueberry, violet and cruched rock scents, compelling. A delicious wine.
Published 1st August 2020
2017 Small Berry Shiraz
French Oak Tasting Notes
Wine Companion
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
Hand- picked, low yielding fruit was extracted properly: four punch down daily for 14 days. This corpulent red was then aged in shaved older French wood for 28 months. The result is bold and sumptuous, the cedar oak tannins serving as a welcome guide to a gushing stream of blue to dark fruit references, lilac, anise, bitter chocolate and mace. This is inimitably Barossa.
As avuncular and warming, as it is polished and contemporary.
Published 1st August 2020
2017 Small Berry Shiraz
American Oak Tasting Notes
Wine Companion
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
Extracted slightly less than its French oak counterpart with four punch downs over 10 days, the American oak mitigating any oak tannins sacrificed. The ripeness level, too, is headier. A stylistic approach, syncing with the vanilla-oak coconut brittle scents of the wood. Otherwise, a cavalcade of black fruit allusions, liquorice back strap, smoked meat and five spice. Dense and thick, a bourbon riff across the finish. OTT for some. Sheer hedonistic delight for others.
Published 1st August 2020
2019 Small Berry Montepulciano
Tasting Notes - Wine Companion
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
An effusively joyous wine, this is lighter weight and friskier than usual. Abstemious yields, 25% whole bunch and 6 months in neutral French casks have produced a lively red beaming ripe strawberry, rosewater and kirsch aromas along a palate of herbal twice and moreish grape tannins. The latter, as much the wines opus as it's drinkability factor, its totem.
Published 1st August 2020
Reviewed by Ned Goodwin
A variety that is often a Godsend in warmer zones by virtue of its ferrous carapace of tannin, a means to mitigate the inherent sweet fruit flavours whole imparting some poise. This full-bodied red is powerful, intense and redolent of dark fruits, salami and dried herb scents. The finish, however, if edgier than ususal. Angular, oaky and rough. Time may do this favours, but it is not as polished and flowing as the other wines of the estate.
Published 1st August 2020
Join Kate McClure from Barossa Roaming while she interviews the great wine story teller Jane Ferrari. This week we taste the Small Berry Shiraz American Oak 2017 by Ballycroft Vineyard and Cellars, Barossa Valley
Great review
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