2020 Ravensworth The Long Way Around Chenin Blanc
Margaret River, WA
A fantastic textural example of Chenin Blanc with ample flavour.
$27.00
Out of Stock
About The Wine
Chenin Blanc has been on Bryan Martin's radar for a while.
The many faces and possibilities for the variety have intrigued him from afar. With a gap in fruit during 2020 thanks to smoke in the Canberra region, Bryan took the plunge and bought a small parcel from Margaret River, WA.
The wine was nursed to life with the help of the good folks at McHenry Hohnen. The fruit saw some skins, time in clay amphora, then was bottled unfined and unfiltered.
It's full-flavoured, honeyed with generous mouth-coating texture and a pure sense of minerality. It's a cracking example of the Loire Valley variety.
About Ravensworth
Bryan Martin is a winemaker at the height of his powers. Setting aside the exceptional work he is doing behind the scenes at regional flagbearer, Clonakilla, his Ravensworth wines have become some of the Canberra region’s hottest releases.
Bryan’s winemaking style is equal parts science and artistic flair. He’s an adventurous spirit trapped in the body of a technical virtuoso. A concert pianist jamming to free jazz. It’s a killer combination.
His range is full of alternative varieties and whacky blends, with texture and balance the key in everything. These are unique wines from a region on the up and up and now some of Canberra’s most sought-after wines.
Murrumbateman, NSW
From The Producer
Like the rest of the Long Way Around range, this wine was in for a fucking epic journey to get to our eagerly awaiting cellar. Here the wine spent the next 8 months in two brand new, and continuing the theme, Italian amphorae. Tava Anfora are situated on the shores of Lake Garda in northern Italy. This ceramic like texture of these beautiful pieces of stoneware, is perfect for maturing delicate varieties like chenin. They preserve these aroma and don’t hinder them with oaken flavours plus they work well in softening larger polyphenols from extended skin-contact. It’s a natural softening and you get an added impression of mineral notes. which is all good.
Blend : Chenin Blanc (100%)
Drink Until : 2024
Photo Credit: Wine Australia
Critic Reviews
"Another wine of ‘heightened’ colour from skin contact, sure we could remove that by adding shit it but this is what wine looks like in raw form, if it worries you drink from vitrified clay cups as we do all skin-contact wines now, it’s a little caveman but that’s needed sometimes. The aromatics lean toward autumn orchard fruits: quince, apple, pear, a waft of windfallen nectarine and peach. There’s also citrus, peel and pith plus a fragrant yet-esoteric white flower note if you care to look deep into your wine, imagination and vinious vocabulary. Sure there’s texture there but it is in flux with the super high acid of this variety that can make rieslings seem a little flabby. It’s so good, we shall meet again." - Bryan Martin, Owner/Winemaker
"Smells like sea breeze and lime. Lovely stuff. Powdery, saline things in the texture and mineral department. Amazing texture actually – great pucker and chew. Thirst-quenching, vibrant, really lovely light juiciness and great length of flavour. It’s a classy number here, very dry, very pure, very good drinking." - Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)
"Surely Bryan Martin deserves the ingenuity award, if there were one. Smoke taint reduced his Canberra vintage to zero in 2020. Ravensworth is a small family business. He needed to make wine. Loves making wine. Friends across Australia rallied to the cause helping source fruit and more. None knew a global pandemic was about to wreak havoc. But this label, this wine had already gestated. Jo Perry from Dormilona sourced organic chenin blanc. And while Bryan was there initially to make the wine (starting with fermentation on skins for a month in concrete, then Western Australia announced its border closures so he had to go home. He praises Jacopo Dalli Cani winemaker at McHenry Hohnen for caring for his ferment and sending it on its journey home to Ravensworth. Nearly 5000km later, yet safe in its IBC tank, the wine could settle on its lees for 8 months in new Tava amphora, sourced from Trento in Northern Italy. They are very fine almost ceramic-like stoneware vessels and since Bryan is first to use them in Australia, he’s now looking at a side business importing them. Back to the wine, the end result. This is wonderful, a wine that defies the odds. Imagine ambrosia. It's a cross between a lemon daiquiri and shiso pickled ginger. It tastes like spiced ginger and fresh ginger in a black tea weakly sweetened with honey - this is obviously dry but the fruit weight lends itself to that sensation. Peppery too. Lovely texture, the phenolics beautifully handled and acidity paramount in harnessing those tannins and energy of this wine. Respect." - Jane Faulkner (Halliday Wine Companion)
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