Sinapius Esme Rouge Gamay 2023

The wine opens with an intensely perfumed nose, showing wild strawberry and redcurrants with hints of violet and wild fennel. Medium bodied, a savoury palate from the whole-bunch stem elements, juicy red fruits, with fine/chalky tannins. This wine has great length and persistence, with a wonderful fine spice and lively acidity to finish. Enjoy at room temperature or chilled.

Estate Grown Gamay sourced from dry grown, high density planted vineyard, planted in 2013 between 7,700 – 11,111 vines per hectare. Gently handpicked to ensure all bunches remain intact, the grapes underwent traditional whole cluster carbonic maceration for 2 weeks, without any addition of sulfur. After pressing, the wine is matured in a 1500 litre foudré and old barriques for 7 months, and bottled without fining and filtration in December 2023.

The vineyard has two distinct volcanic-based soil types: deep red ferrosol soils, and ironstone gravels with a layer of micaceous quartz siltstone 30-60cm below. Both soils contain large amounts of quartz and basalt, and hold moisture well which allows us to dry-grow our vines. The 4 distinct vineyard blocks face North-East and East which warms the soils early in the day and gives the vines full sun exposure to ensure optimal ripeness and flavour in our grapes.

Blocks are planted at a high density of 1.3m between rows x 1m between vines (7700 vines/ha) with some sections planted at 1.1m x 0.75m (10250 vines/ha). Our fruiting wire is positioned 40cm off the ground with an overall canopy height of approximately 1.2 metres. Each vine is pruned using Poussard technique to a single 8-10 bud cane therefore the yield per vine is significantly low (currently averaging less than 500 grams per vine).

So, what is high density planting and why do we do it?

Our vineyard has been modelled on vineyard plantings in Burgundy, the homeland of exceptional Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Burgundy vineyards are generally planted at 1m wide row x 1-metre-wide vine spacings equating to 10,000 vines per hectare. Our philosophy at Sinapius is that in order to make great wine, yields per vine need to be low to ensure maximal intensity, concentration and expression of the site is evident in the wines.

The vineyard work in high density planted vineyards is back breaking, labour intensive, and, undertaken mostly by hand. This includes pruning in winter through to de-suckering, shoot positioning, summer pruning, leaf plucking, trimming, fruit thinning at bunch closure as well as netting to protect the grapes from the birds.

In 2019, we imported a narrow (90cm wide) crawler tractor from Italy. The Geier allows for easier access within our narrow rows and ensures minimal compaction to the soil. With the use of Braun undervine cultivation equipment, we are now able to manage weeds under the vines without the use of herbicide.

We grow a number of different varieties at Sinapius. We have also focused on planting a vast array of Clones which have been selected and planted in different blocks, on differing soil type on the property. This allows for a greater expression of these varieties as each clones offers some subtle variation in characteristics, resulting in more complexity in the finished wines.