Andrew Seppelt Wines

This is a small ‘side project’ of Andrew Seppelt and Bill Jahnke, which began in 2001. The idea was to push the winemaking envelope way beyond the norm, indeed in some ways standing it on its head. The Shiraz was kept in a 1.5-tonne open fermenter with aggressive cap-wetting/ plunging early in the fermentation, backing off towards the end, but with the temperature kept at around 20˚C until dryness, whereafter it was lifted to 28˚C and held for seven days, followed by three weeks maceration on skins. Says Andrew, ‘The wine smelled horrid – volatile and flat – but that’s how I remember the wines at this stage when I was working in Provence’. Malolactic fermentation was spontaneous, and cleaned out the volatile acidity, the wine eventually being bottled unfined and unfiltered. The Shiraz Cabernet is made in a more traditional fashion. The wines are sold mainly through a private mailing list on the website at $45 per bottle. -JAMES HALLIDAY