Nose
The wine is clean, fresh and has an inviting berry fruit nose. Aromas of vanilla bean ice-cream and fresh strawberries.
Palate
The palate is fresh and lively with rich juicy red fruit characters. Lingering fruit flavours carry through the palate which finishes with just a hint of red wine texture. The perfect wine to enjoy on a spring or summers day
Growing Conditions
VINTAGE: The vintage of 2021 is a bit of a blur in the memory with constant decisions made on the fly at all hours of the day given the unusual weather conditions across Margaret River, and to a lesser extent the Great Southern of Western Australia.
It was a great start to the season with the first really wet winter for several years and therefore good soil moisture entering spring and summer. This is even more important for ‘dry grown’ (unirrigated) vineyards such as Hay Shed Hill. There were positive signs at budburst with potentially better crop levels than the last two years.
Spring was mild. In the middle to late part of February and throughout March we experienced multiple episodes of rain, some of these falls being heavy. This sort of weather is rare in a Margaret River summer requiring harvest plans to be constantly reviewed and updated.
Given the conditions I am thrilled with the result, all whites and rosés were pristine and clean, perhaps a little lighter in body than many years but wonderfully fresh and pure in character.
I think it will be a classic year more closely aligned with Margaret River wines of the early and mid-90s as opposed to the bigger wines of the early part of the century. And I think that is a good thing.
Michael Kerrigan
Winemaking
With minimal skin contact, the wine exhibits a light bright appearance with colour in the salmon pink spectrum. Fermentation to almost dry has produced a clean and refreshingly lively palate. There is just the hint of savoury texture indicating its origins of quality red grapes.
The Pitchfork Pink is a great example of modern Australian rosé, light years away from the dark ruby red, sweet and heavy examples of the past.
Appearance
Bright and clear pink grapefruit hues.