2021 Tscharke the Master Montepulciano, Barossa Valley

Deep purple colour. The nose is a picture of the varietal: spicy, savoury, with a nice rusticity to it counterbalanced by notes of cherry and red plums. On the palate this wine is powerful and to the point, with juicy red fruit and subtle oak tones to complement. The savoury nature of Montepulciano shows towards the finish, where firm tannins and woody, herbaceous characters linger for long. Medium bodied, multifaceted and textural, this is a wine for any occasion and a multitude of food pairings.

The Montepulciano vineyard is located on our Stone Well Estate. Planted in 2001, this was Australia’s first vineyard planted to this variety indigenous to Italy. Trained onto a single cordon wire, the canopies produced from the well-established bilateral cordons are managed using a vertical shoot positioning trellising system. This variety is very fruitful and assists with growing intensely flavoured, yet balanced fruit. Bunch thinning is carried out post véraison. The brown clay soils have shallow underlying sedimentary bedrock. Montepulciano is a late ripening grape variety but despite the longer ripening period it has an exceptional ability to retain great acidity levels in warm growing conditions