Winemaking process

Winemaking at Clarendon Hills starts and finishes in the vineyards – and everything we do is guided by Roman’s interpretation and tasting impression.

Every step of the winemaking process is undertaken by a small team of five people, with a collective 50 years’ vintage experience.  It is the pride, experience and professionalism of our team that ensures we continue to produce some of the world’s finest wines, year upon year.

• Forecasting

  

  The extreme conditions in any Australian growing year are major factors in forecasting shoot counts, bud numbers and canopy management systems. Forecasting plays a major role in vineyard decisions, although constant readjustments are required throughout the summer to protect the assets of the vineyard. Here at Clarendon Hills, we evaluate the growing season, climate, and sub-soil moisture levels to predict the size of the next harvest.

• Harvesting

  

  The harvest process is initiated by micro-managing each vineyard by way of picking decisions. Flavours and tannin profiles deviate substantially across vineyards, and in some instances, up to six distinct parcels may be identified. Picking decisions consequentially vary around these parcels and rows as we look to optimise flavours and contributions.  At Clarendon Hills, Roman tastes the berries – and according to his evaluation, patches and individual rows are picked separately.  Sometimes this may occur over a number of days or weeks. Importantly, all our fruit is hand-picked.

• Fermentation

  

  Once harvested, our fruit arrives at the winery to be crushed and fermented.  A wild yeast fermentation of individual patches takes place in open, stainless steel tanks. This usually takes place following many, many tastings. Roman will navigate the tank’s direction as a result of every tasting – and accordingly, may make several adjustments.  For instance, he may decide to extend maceration, reduce it, adjust the temperature – and more.  There are many approaches to fine tuning the fabric of each vineyard.

• Oak maturation

  

  Following the primary fermentation, decisions are made regarding each press and how it should be treated.

  The process is applied over and over, until Roman has picked every part of the vineyard and fermented, pressed it out, and applied an oak matrix.  Once each parcel is in oak, the settling process begins – as does a process known as malolactic fermentation. During the 18 month maturation period, each barrel is tasted a number of times and even the original parcels’ oak regime may be altered as a result.

• Bottling

  

  At the culmination of this period, the wines are bottled onsite, at the winery, by the very team that made the wines. The careful, sophisticated bottling process occurs without any fining or filtration. At no stage is any chemical or agent applied to the wines. Storage at the winery ensures we guarantee the hard work of every vintage is not jeopardised. Basically, the wines only move about 25 metres over the length of their making, maturing and storage – to ensure the wine is kept in the best conditions possible.

• Packaging

  

  The next step is packaging the wines. This is as equally important as any decision that occurs during the 18 month sculpting process. Bottling acts as the seal of time and enables decades of enjoyment, which can transcend generations. Clarendon Hills is old fashioned in this sense – and source the only the very best bottles – from the best glass manufacturer in France. Our burgundy bottles (used for syrah, grenache and mourvedre) and bordeaux bottles (used for merlot cabernet) are of premium quality.

• Corking

  

  Cork has been plagued with negative connotations as a result of primitive methods and low research and development within our industry. Today, cork is processed and treated a highly sophisticated manner that is far superior to those used in recent years. At Clarendon Hills, we source our cork from Spain, as opposed to Portugal - where most cork is produced for the global market. Spanish cork is less available due to relative difficulties growing it Spain. The hot, arid climate of inland Spain makes for very slow, dense growth. These conditions deliver fantastic, hard corks.

  Our incidence of cork taint is in the 1-2% range of production. Typically, corked examples go undetected by the public, and the wine is simply considered a bit ‘flat’. If you ever receive a Clarendon Hills wine that is unexciting and flat – please return it. Without entering the great debate of corks versus. alternative closures, it is our belief corks offer the best long term (50+ years) vessel for wine evolution. Needless to say - considering it is our decision to seal all of our wines with the best cork we can get, we will gladly exchange any of our bottles which have a TCA level present.