You will always hear that all great wine is made in the vineyard or that you cant make great wine without great grapes. And rightly so, both of these are absolutely true but winemaking, and in particular the style of winemaking and the decisions made from the point of harvest onward, has a large influence on the final makeup of any wine. A wine in the bottle is a story in liquid form – the seasonal combination of the terroir, the viticulture, and the style, decisons and personality of the winemaker and the people who work the land.

At Georges Road, we believe in winemaking with a light and natural touch, as a guiding hand in the cellar. Whilst superb quality of the fruit is essential to any great wine we do not want our wines to be primarily fruit driven. Balance is essential, the interplay between acidity and sweetness, tannin and oak, extract and weight.  We want our wines to be food friendly. We want our wines to be elegant and delicate rather than heavy and alcoholic. Above all of course we want them to be enjoyable.

Whilst we are always open to experimentation, and accepting of course that all fruit needs to be treated on its own merits, there certain stylistic approaches in the winery that we currently employ.

For our WHITE WINES…all fruit is hand harvested…we believe in whole bunch pressing of the grapes…brief settling times to encourage higher levels of juice solids in the ferments…no settled juice lees added back…complete exposure of the juice to oxygen prior to ferment…the use of natural yeasts for primary fermentation…cool but not cold ferment temperatures…plenty of time on gross lees…no cold stabilisation…no fining…the use of cork for bottling…an extended period bottle maturation before release…

For our RED WINES… hand harvesting…ambient pre ferment soak…small open top fermentation…hand plunging…extended post ferment macereation…ferments are separated by clone and by freerun/press fraction…natural malolactic fermentation…no racking prior to blending…no fining…oak to be restained and not dominant…the use of cork for bottling…an extended period of bottle maturation before release…