Genesis Syrah, Julian Castagna, Beechworth – Biodynamic 2018

Julian Castagna,  Beechworth, North-east of Victoria.

Julian Castagna, with a little help from his friends, made his first vintage of wine in 1998, having purchased a few acres of vines, and bought a little bit of fruit. Today, with his son Adam, Julien produces just a handful of biodynamic wines from his tiny winery, with each vintage getting more precise and more finely tuned. Situated at an altitude of 500 metres five-and-a-half kilometres outside the beautiful town of Beechworth in Northeast Victoria, which has been farmed according to Rudolph Steiner's biodynamic principles from the word go so as to achieve optimum fruit quality and health. Everything is done by hand: hand harvesting leads to gentle crushing of whole clusters and some de-stemmed grapes. Natural fermentation is allowed to take its own course, and the wines are bottled without fining or filtration, and without masking the character with new oak. The wines are a clear reflection of the land and defy the stereotype of Australian wines.

Julian Castagna was 2014’s Australian Winemaker of the Year.

Single vineyard – made from 1850 Rhone Valley massal selected cuttings with wild yeast fermentation with minimal sulphites.

Genesis Syrah, biodynamic, full cassis, pepper, rich and deep. The colour of the Genesis Syrah is dark plum to magenta but yet still somehow transparent. A full-throttle wine of depth and complexity. It smells of cassis and spice with enchanting aromas of cedar, sweet black pepper, freshly dampened earth and vanilla pod – yet restrained. The palate is rich, concentrated, deep – dark and mysterious with fine powdery tannins and a lovely drying extract. A subtle, delicate floral aspect lingers with the finely powdered tannins on the finish. The graphite-like character and the fresh acidity ensures the wine finishes long, dry and spicy, always alive.

Grape: 100% Shiraz