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Winemaking

The quality of our wine lies predominantly in the vineyard and therefore with the grape grower. At Beelgara, our growers have a real interest in the company's success and understand what they need to do to get the best from their fruit. Working closely with the winemaking team, headed by Rod Hooper, growers will continue to deliver consistent, premium-quality fruit.
The winery enjoys flexibility which larger wine companies cannot achieve. It also has reliability of quantity and quality in grape supply, often not available to smaller producers. The close bond between growers and winemakers paves the way for innovation and creativity, with wine like Sun Dried Shiraz proving a shared labour of love pays off.
The Riverina has 16,500 hectares under vine. It is responsible for approximately 80% of the wine produced in New South Wales and 15% of the Australian total. It is a horticultural paradise, with long, dry summers, mild winters and sufficient water to ensure fruit of consistent, full, ripe fruit characters. Ideal conditions for the production of ‘Noble' rot, or Botrytis cinerea, have guaranteed international recognition for the region's Botrytised Semillon dessert wines.
Beelgara's winemakers look to other regions for inspiration as well, by sourcing some of the finest fruit from the premier wine regions in Australia .

Amarone - Sun Dried Production

Amarone Australian style ... Sun Dried Shiraz

Influenced by the Riverina regions Italian heritage Beelgara's Sun Dried Shiraz captures the essence of Italian Amarone in a distinct Australian way.
Amarone is produced primarily in the North of Italy. Fruit will often take longer to ripen and cold weather can set in before the fruit is ripe, the fruit is therefore picked and laid out on straw mats in trays and ripened and dried inside for what weeks. The result of this drying process is raisining of the grapes and the result is rich, intense, jammy flavour. Sometimes there is such a concentration of sugars in the wine that you cannot get it to ferment out totally dry because there is just too much alcohol.
Some wines are deliberately left quite sweet and these will not carry the Amarone designation. But the grapes that are destined for an Amarone are the best sections of the vineyards typically from older vines. It is quite incredible how Amarone has become one of Italy 's best red wines due to advances in winemaking techniques that still honor tradition while making the wines more stable. The labor and time involved help to explain why any Amarone worth its straw mats cost over $50.00.
Beelgara has taken this tradition and created their own version. From a select old vine shiraz block, the fruit is hand picked and laid in the vineyard on hessian mats for 3 days. Picked at 13 Baume the fruit will then be collected at 15 Baume for crushing and fermentation in small open fermenters. The fruits juices in that period have concentrated and intensified with the resultant wine developing similar rich, jammy flavours like its Italian cousin. Distinct earthy characters are also evident in the wine which the winemakers put down to the time spent on the mats and the warm earth.

Endorsements

Cowra Wine Show 2007
2006 Winemakers Selection Black Shiraz - SILVER

Griffith  Wine Show 2007
Sun Dried Liqueur Muscat - SILVER

Adelaide  Wine Show 2007
2007 Winemakers Selection Viognier - SILVER

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