Summary: Food Truck Wines was created by Nicholas Crampton and McLaren Vale winegrower Jim Zerella as high quality, varietal wines that are the perfect match to the cuisine and lifestyle of Australia. The Food Truck Shiraz blend was finalised in conjunction with the members of the Slow Food movement of the Barossa Valley - tasted with aged steaks cooked in wood-fired smokers.
Vineyards: Sourced from a selection of old-vine vineyards in the Seaview sub district of McLaren Vale and dry-grown low-yielding vineyards in the Lower Murray and Fleurieu Peninsula.
Winemaking: The fruit is partially hand-harvested before de-stemming and cool fermentation in small two tonne open fermenters with regular hand plunging. Primarily matured in seasoned French oak {20% new French) for ten months before bottling.
Vintage Report: An outstanding vintage. Excellent, balanced and consistent conditions - warm but crucially not too warm, dry but not too dry, and finally cool Autumn nights that allowed for retention of natural acidity - have led to intensely flavoured and brilliantly balanced fruit with excellent freshness.
Tasting Note: Vivid red / purple in colour with an expansive nose of blackberries, blood plums and chocolatey oak. The palate is opulent and inviting with dark plum and blackcurrant fruit flavours matched by dried herbs, cloves and subtle spicy oak. Fine-grained savoury tannins provide definition to the impressively long finish. This powerful but well balanced wine is very approachable now but will gain character and complexity for up to ten years cellaring.
2016 Food Truck South Australian Rose
Summary: Food Truck Wines was created by Nicholas Crampton and Corey Ryan as high quality, varietal wines that are the perfect match to the cuisine and lifestyle of Australia. The Food Truck Rose blend was finalised with spicy Thai at the Star of Siam restaurant in Adelaide.
Vineyards: Sangiovese is an outstanding variety to create pale and dry Rose will excellent character and soft savoury complexity. Sourced from a combination of dry grown inland vineyards and cooler climate King Valley sites.
Winemaking: Completely whole bunch fermented with a short maceration (a few hours) suffi cient to impart colour and texture. Following a soft pressing, the juice is given a cool fermentation in stainless steel and allowed to ferment to five grams residual - suitable for spicy cuisine. Maturation on lees in stainless steel adds texture and malo-lactic fermentation is prevented to ensure vibrancy.
Vintage Report: A wild ride of a vintage with high temperature spikes, heavy rainfall and other wild weather. But most of the excitement occurred early in the season or was of little direct impact before an almost perfect Autumn - warm and dry with cool nights. Vineyards were allow to ripen to perfection and a very successful crop was picked.
Tasting Note: Pale pink in colour before a expressive nose of soft red fruit and sweet spice. The palate is fresh and vibrant with a subtle depth of light berry and candied fruit drop flavours lingering long on a soft and well balanced finish. The slight level of residual sugar perfect for Asian cuisine is nicely balanced by bright fresh acidity.
