Deck Time
It’s been a super summer on the deck under the new-ish roof. What a game-changer that has been! Our builder of choice, ‘Kiwi’ Kevin Barker (who also built the cellar door and our Battle of Bosworth office at Willunga) sailed over in his fancy fishing boat and moored at American River and commuted back and forth to Springs Road to complete the build. Thanks Kev. You can see below Hannah our ex-book keeper and her family and Scott our winemaker and his family enjoying the shade and ambience that the roof provides!
Dates for your Diary – June Long Weekend Saturday 10th and 11th June at Springs Road
We are throwing cellar door open on the long weekend for lunch and wine and fires and good times as part of Gutsy Kangaroo Island. Mark the diary for Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th June. Check here for details – we will update with details shortly!
Saturday will be a bit more casual, booking wise . We will potentially have a visit from members of the SA hunting community as the KI hunt club is hosting the 2023 state hunt. (it is drag hunting – remember, there are no foxes on KI!) which will bring some colour and movement to the day. Giddy up.
More details to come, but more information as it comes in will be posted here: on our Experiences and Cellar Door Page
2021 Springs Road ‘Terre Napoleon’ Shiraz review from Huon Hooke in the Real Review
The Terre Napoléon is our Shiraz barrel selection – a tiny amount of Shiraz which Joch selects for extra ageing in barrel before bottling in numbered bottles.
Deep, bright purple-red colour and a rich, chocolaty, meaty/spicy and vanillan bouquet, complex and Rhône-ish, the oak neatly merged with the rich chocolate/mocha and fruitcake flavours. A big-boned, concentrated shiraz with long ageing potential. Impressive stuff. 96/100
There’s not a whole lot of this wine left, but find out more about this wine here https://springsroad.com.au/wine/terre-napoleon-shiraz-2021/
Visitors
Now that COVID is behind us (I hope I don’t jinx this) we are getting lots of visitors, which is terrific. Darryl and Darlene came down from Darwin to have a quick taste and tour. They run Thomas Chin which sells our wine in the top end and sell the Springs Road Shiraz and little island rosé and red from KI. Sadly they didn’t have time to come over to the island, but made it to Battle of Bosworth at least!
Social media sensation
Who would have thought it? Joch a social media sensation!! A simple video of Joch demonstrating use of the ‘crimper’ – a tool which he borrowed from friend and neighbour Ben Lacey, has gone viral: 66 thousand views at last count. Breathtaking.
Joch reckoned it was tractor dealers all round the world tuning in, but we don’t think so. It’s hard sometimes to understand the algorithms in the social media world, isn’t it?
We plant cover crops on our McLaren Vale vineyards, but not on Kangaroo Island. The reason? We use sheep as weed control on the KI vineyards in winter and the little bleaters would trample and eat any cover crop that we might plant. This is why we have to move the woolly weed munchers quick smart before the vines start to grow in spring – they’ll eat pretty much everything green in their path.
Vintage coming – nets out!
You know what’s coming when you see the big bales of netting being dragged out of the shed. We have to net all of our vineyards on Springs Road otherwise the local crows (or are they ravens? I am never sure – are there any birders out there who can set me straight on this?) would scoff the lot.
Louise remembers one day before vintage a couple of years ago when she was working in cellar door and looked up and saw hundreds of crows (ravens) sitting in the paddock opposite. They had their beady eyes on our grapes. It was very eerie. They missed out that year, but knocked off the entire Chardonnay crop in 2020.
Truck stop
Joch’s big truck comes out of hibernation, too as vintage draws near. Joch loves his truck. I don’t think that we will need the truck to bring back our KI chardonnay, as Joch reckons we don’t have a huge harvest, and in any case, it sounds like the ferry is pretty busy at the moment.
We recruited ‘Luigi’ The Fiat Ducato to help us move grapes from the island, as he can fit 2 of the plastic one tonne grape bins in it AND get a booking on the ferry (the truck takes up twice the space.) Looks like few people are pretty keen on the Fiat. Jane has it booked on the KI ferry next week to re-stock the cellar door, as well as a small brown canine who quite likes the elevated seating.
little island fizz
We are seconds away from releasing the all-new little island fizz, a sparkling red made from our island Cabernet and Shiraz. We are so excited. The release date will be next week if all the stars align; we have to repack it into 6 packs, after Joch has tasted the wine and given it the seal of approval. then we will be ready to release it.
STOP PRESS.. we have just tasted the little island fizz and the man from Del Monte says YES. For those that grew up in the UK in the 70’s and 80’s this was the tagline from an orange juice advert It’s worth watching…. So the new little island fizz is officially launched today (7th March 2023)
Stokes Bay, Kangaroo Island
Stokes Bay on Kangaroo Island has been announced as Australia’s Best Beach 2023 by beach expert Brad Farmer for Tourism Australia. The beach is in a secluded bay on the North Coast of Kangaroo Island, some 50kms from Kingscote (and about 40km from us at Springs Road).
The drive there is pretty and the whole north coast is spectacular. When you reach the carpark (there is a super café called Rockpool if you are peckish, great fish and chips and squid) you follow the signs for the beach which takes you on a winding path through giant boulders. You pop out the other side to a lovely beach with surf, and a giant rockpool. It’s pretty special and very unexpected. Read more about it this here www.tourkangarooisland.com.au/stories/stokes-bay-best-beach-in-australia
