• Delivery
Wine clubWine clubWine clubWine club
  • Gift registry
  • Wishlist
  • FAQs
The family Hentschke have been Barossa farming since 1842, they know from good soils and settle on nothing but the finest land. Keith Hentschke chose a special site along Greenock Creek, at the intersection of Gerald Roberts and Jenke Roads, near the ancient winegrowing hamlet of Seppeltsfield to plant vines in the early 1990s. They now yield vintages of the most amazing intensity, saturated with the essence of grand Barossa Shiraz, an international wine industry favourite and a sagacious selection this.. Savour a sip of seppeltsfield»
There were two scrub covered parcels of land, just outside Pokolbin village along McDonalds Road, that local council had long set aside for use as cricket ground and cemetery. Both were ultimately auctioned off to the highest bidders and sown to vine. A third undeveloped site became the subject of a long running feud among the new and old neighbours. Dodgy invoices between the rivals were exchanged and the division of firewood became a further cause of contention. A truce was eventually called by the two protagonists, Brokenwood and Hungerford Hill, for the sake of healthy viticulture. The nascent blocks achieved international renown as the eminent Cricket Pitch and the Langtons Listed Graveyard.. Sociable soils make for healthy vine»
Kalleske are one of our nation's most distinguished winegrower families, Barossa through and through, heirs to the tradition of Prussian pastoralists who established South Australia as one of the world's great viticultural precincts. The family Kalleske were the quiet achievers behind the stellar quality of fruit, at the heart of the most memorable vintages Penfolds Grange. Old sites and ancient vines, a tally of which have been branded under the Atze's Corner label, a regal range of stately Barossa wines, irresistibly underpriced in terms of provenance, excellence and sheer delight. Spectacular bouquets, redolent of freshness, fragrance and fruit, astonishingly balanced to perfection, meaty, mouth.. Small batches of the barossa's very best»
Boutique winemaking affords great advantages, every vine can be uniquely husbanded, quality control is maximised, each barrel can be individually sampled and assembled into the perfect cuvee. Engineering types are innately suited to such viticulture. Colin Best embarked upon his sabbatical to the great vineyards of Burgundy's Cote d'Or. He returned to plant Pinot Noir on a craggy half hectare near Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. An ancient masonry wool mill was outfitted for winemaking and Leabrook Estate was born. This is an aesthetic range of meticulously crafted, limited vintages, fashioned for the aficianado of bespoke, small batch, little vineyard wines... The lobethal libations of leabrook»

Arakoon Full Bodied GSM CONFIRM VINTAGE

Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre McLaren Vale South Australia
Mourvedre
1 - 12 of 98
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 next»
1 - 12 of 98
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 next»
Arakoon
Arakoon aspire to make elegant, restrained and sophisticated wines that will complement food, as wine should be drunk with fine food and good company

Let there be no doubt, the wine is made in the vineyard. The source fruit can vary greatly from vintage to vintage. In order to obtain a certain degree of consistency, batches are processed as separately as possible followed by a final blending, assembling wines into unique styles. Elegance with power, aspirations which are not always easy to reach. Arakoon maximize quality by interacting with growers as much as possible, and by choosing growers who are interested in producing high quality fruit, rather than just high quantity. Processing, maturation, blending and bottling are also important and that is where the winemaking part comes in.

Arakoon

Arakoon aim at producing styles which the winemakers themselves would like to drink. Inspirational producers around the world include amongst others: Guigal, Graillot, Rayas, Clape, Pegau, Trevallon, Rousseau and J.J. Confuron (reds), and FX Pichler, Knoll, Coche-Dury, Marcel Deiss and JJ Prum (whites). Whithin Australia, Arakoon are fans of Mount Mary, Noons, Bowen's, Summerfield, Wendouree, Lakes Folly and Jasper Hill. Notably, Australia and McLaren Vale produces grapes that differ from the European favourites, so physical emulations are therefore impossible. The quality however that these producers routinely achieve is very much a target to emulate.

Arakoon believe that experimentation is the key to achieving higher and higher levels of quality. It is easy to make a prediction of what happens in response to certain treatments, however, any real answer will only come from trials. Tests are routinely conducted with synthetic corks vs. a range of natural corks, the number of times a wine should be racked, the effect of fining rates, primary fermentation in barrel vs. vat, pre- and post-fermentation maceration, etc... and there is more to come.

After tasting Arakoon you may become surprised that some of the wines taste quite different from most other South Australians, more elegant and understated perhaps. This is a stylistic objective resulting from extended maceration post-fermentation, the use of subtle new French oak amongst other old barrels and blending towards the above stated aim. These styles sometimes are a better match with food rather than big and overtly fruity wines.

Arakoon

Wines are graded into a big and a light or elegant group. The big group contains the Big, fat & gutsy (BFG), the Sellicks Beach and the Doyen. The remainder are more on the lighter side. Sellicks Beach/BFG blend is based on little new wood and wines that have a porty, jammy element in them, whilst reserve Shiraz and the doyen are more stamped by subtle new French oak and varietal aromas. The Lighthouse/DBB blend is an attempt at producing an elegant Cabernet Shiraz modeled after the likes of Dom. du Trevallon in Provence.

Arakoon don't own or manage vineyards but they have firm views on viticulture. Since inaugural vintage, Aakoon have brought in grapes from vines that have yielded miserably and from vines that have had reasonably large crops, from vines that were two years young, up to a hundred years old, from vines that have ripened their fruit early and late, and with varying degrees of ripeness (10.5 to over 16% potential alcohol!). In Summary, the best wine so far (doyen) have come from two year old vines that ripened early. Arakoon have seen examples where low yielding vines produce wine that is not too special, whilst reasonably high yielding vines give very nice fruit (and therefore wine). At vintage, Arakoon produce a large range of varying batches that differ in grape, geographical origin and winemaking treatments. Some vineyards are harvested at two ripeness levels. The different batches are kept separate all the way until blending. For such a tiny winery, Arakoon can end up with a substantial number of batches, between 15-25 depending on the vintage. Subsequently the batches are grouped according to style or potential. Not only structure, but flavours are considered.

In essence, Arakoon aim at styles, as opposed to grape varieties and origin. McLaren Vale is famous for big, fruity wines that are influenced by new american oak. Not all wines are that way of course, but, it could be argued that this is somewhat of a South Australian style, if any. Arakoon on the other hand are quite subdued and different stylistically from the South Australian style. It comes down to a consistent employment of post-ferment maceration and choice of oak. Blending also plays a role. Like Frank Sinatra, Arakoon like things done their own way! The only way to really find out for yourself is not to read, but to try it out in practice.

Arakoon