Vintage 2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
The long, cool ripening period has given us intense flavours at lower sugar levels.
The Sauvignon Blanc Semillon carries a zesty aroma of citrus fruits, honeydew melon and a whisper of white peach. A bright, light, refreshing palate with a crisp finish.
Perfect with seafood in the warmer months.
2011 Sauvignon Blanc Semillon
Price: $20
Sauvignon Blanc Semillon
Viognier Nouveau brings you Viognier at its freshest.
Fermented in stainless steel and bottled early, this wine captures the vibrancy of the Viognier fruit in all its youthful glory.
Heaps of flavour without heaviness. Dangerously drinkable.
Drink it now.
2011 Viognier Nouveau
Price: $22
Viognier Nouveau
Murrumbateman’s cool, continental climate and decomposed granite soils are perfect for Riesling. We have been growing and making Riesling for forty years and we have no doubt the variety is Canberra’s great white grape.
2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
This Riesling shows fine, floral perfume with ripe apple notes and a hint of aniseed. A crisp, zesty palate with plenty of mineral acids. Really fresh.
Drink now for its freshness and perfume or cellar for 6-12 years and watch it develop honey and toast characters with age.
Pale straw-green; a floral bouquet of apple blosom and spice
"right up there with the best of them"
yields to a palate with great drive to its lime juice flavours that last long after the wine is swallowed. Right up there with the best of them. 96
James Halliday's Top 100 NSW Wines 2011
Clonakilla riesling does not get a lot of attention but it is one of the estate’s best wines.
This release has a lovely lilt to it – especially once it’s had some air. It tastes of pulpy, sweet, red and green apples with drives of lime running through the finish.
"exquisite purity and elegance"
Tart acidity but sweet fruit, and married nicely together. Exquisite purity and elegance. Riesling to its back teeth. It needs to settle down a little but I’d still think that it will be at its best as a young wine. You could win people over to riesling with this wine. 92
Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, August 16, 2011
The cool 2011 vintage has blessed the Kirks with some of their finest riesling fruit yet.
"pink lady apple, lemon blossom, fresh lime air"
Precise, pretty, and long-lived, with a pink lady apple, lemon blossom, fresh lime air and a fine-boned, structured, taut palate of soft, graphite-like minerality. 94
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 11, 2011
2011 Riesling
Price: $25
Riesling
This wine is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.
It was barrel fermented on lees, which has given rise to a complex aroma, vibrant lemon and passionfruit characters on one hand and some funky matchstick notes on the other.
It’s tinder dry, intense and a little wild.
2011 Blanc
Price: $25
Blanc
This is gorgeous, but only tiny quantities were made.
Pristine, detailed aromas of ripe apple, quince jelly and cumquat marmalade.
Luscious, complex and finishing beautifully fresh.
Two 375ml bottles per customer.
Price: $30
Late Picked Riesling
2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
The long ripening period has given us intense flavours at lower sugar levels.
We took advantage of the cool vintage conditions and made this rare Chardonnay. We took fruit from a high altitude vineyard in Tumbarumba and a tiny parcel of Chardonnay vines in the Clonakilla vineyard at Murrumbateman. Whole bunch pressing, warm fermentation, lees stirring and aging in French oak were used to produce this wine.
It shows yellow peach, grapefruit and cracked wheat characters on the nose with a precise, fresh palate with bright acids.
2011 Chardonnay
Price: $35
Chardonnay
2011 was cool and punctuated by regular rainfall.
The long ripening period has given us intense flavours at lower sugar levels.
The Viognier is pristine with vibrant fruit characters and more than a whisper of elegance and sophistication. Pear, apricot and ginger notes with some complex barrel ferment characters on the nose.
A balanced palate carrying classic viognier richness without being heavy or cloying.
2011 Viognier
Price: $45
Viognier
This wine is made from Shiraz selected from four vineyards in the Hilltops district around Young on the South Western Slopes of New South Wales.
2011 was a cool vintage producing wines with delicate perfumes and fine tannins.
Cherry and spice notes; pepper against a background of fresh red berries. An elegant wine for drinking over five years.
2011 Hilltops Shiraz
Price: $25
Hilltops Shiraz
The Rhone Valley in France is central to the Clonakilla story. Our love for the spicy cool-climate Shiraz styles of the Northern Rhone is well known.
In the Southern Rhone around the village of Chateauneuf du Pape, wines from blends of up to thirteen grape varieties are made. Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre are the main players here. We have planted these varieties along with smaller amounts of Cinsault and Roussanne in our Euroka Park vineyard.
Here then is our first attempt at a Southern Rhone style wine. A fascinating new addition to the Clonakilla stable.
2009 Grenache Shiraz
Sold out
Grenache Shiraz
The cool 2011 season was the vintage we needed to launch our first release of Pinot Noir in twenty years. Earthy, spicy aromas with raspberries and cherries emerging with air.
An entirely appropriate lacy texture with silky tannins. Light and lovely.
Four bottles per customer.
2011 Pinot Noir
Price: $35
Pinot Noir
Sean O’Riada is one of the heroes of modern Ireland. A talented musician and composer, he is credited with taking traditional Irish music out of the kitchens and pubs of Ireland and putting it on the concert stages of the world. He died, prematurely, in 1971, the year Clonakilla was established by John Kirk.
He was John’s cousin.
The 2010 O’Riada is made from fruit selected from four vineyards around Murrumbateman. 5% Viognier was co-fermented with the Shiraz.
2010 was the year the drought broke.
The rain started on Christmas day 2009 and fell on a number of occasions through summer and early autumn. It was cooler too, producing fruit with classic cool-climate Shiraz notes. The aroma is a festival of spice: pepper, clove, nutmeg and fresh garden herbs flowing on to a medium bodied palate with supple, fine tannins.
Drink over five to ten years.
Strong, bright red-purple; an altogether elegant wine, elegance due in part to the 5% co-fermented viognier, and partly to the balance between juicy fruit on the one hand, savoury tannins and oak on the other.
"an altogether elegant wine"
The skilled hand of Tim Kirk at work. Drink to 2025. 95
James Halliday’s Wine Companion 2012
It was a cooler, wetter year in Canberra – as it was in many areas. The start of the drought breaking. A dicey year, in many respects. And yet this O’Riada Shiraz has marched on regardless.
A fantastic cool climate shiraz. I suspect that I like it more than the releases from the warmer/drier/easier years. It’s gorgeously perfumed, all sweet boysenberry and violet. Though of course spice abounds – peppery, clovey, an assortment of spice boxes delights. Dark, foresty cherries flesh it out.
"gorgeously perfumed, all sweet boysenberry and violet"
And twiggy, tannic notes provide the bones. Highly defined and detailed. Some meatiness too. Balanced and tight. Oh, I could go on. It’s a wine for cool climate enthusiasts – but if you’re one, you’ll love it. Drink 2015-2021. 93+
Campbell Mattinson, Winefront, July 29, 2011
Clonakilla genius for the masses, this year cooler and more pepper-edged than ever.
"generous layers of edgy pepper and crunchy blackberries"
It’s chiselled, angular and honed, with mineral granite nuances, generous layers of edgy pepper and crunchy blackberries. Given time, it will unravel into something profound. Drink 2016-2020. 94
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 19, 2011
2010 O’Riada Shiraz
Price: $35
O'Riada Shiraz
Ballinderry is Irish for ‘place of the oak’ and is named for the great oak tree planted in the top corner of the property when Clonakilla was established by John Kirk in 1971.
The 2009 Ballinderry is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (25%), Cabernet Franc (30%) and Merlot (45%).
2009 was a great vintage in the Canberra District. A warm late summer made for early ripening giving us fruit with great colour and intense flavours.
The Ballinderry has vibrant ripe fruit characters: blackcurrants, dark berry fruit, even a suggestion of aniseed, well framed by cedary French oak.
A product of old vines, low yields, and careful winemaking in a warm year, it has plenty of aging potential if you like to put your reds down for a while.
Best drinking: 2014 – 2028.
2009 Ballinderry
Price: $45
Ballinderry
Finally in 2010 the drought broke.
The rain started on Christmas day 2009 and fell on a number of occasions through summer and early autumn. The water was a blessing for thirsty vines, but did present some challenges as vintage approached. Careful viticulture and good timing enabled us to pick ripe fruit in fine condition from our Murrumbateman vineyard.
Following three warm vintages, the cooler conditions in 2010 produced a more elegant wine. Aromas of violets, rose petals, raspberries and cracked pepper. Classically cool-climate in style, it has a gentle, spice-laden, medium-bodied palate with feather-fine tannin.
5% Viognier.
Drink over five to ten years.
Put this in a blind tasting with top–end Cote-Rotie wines of the Rhone Valley and it would be a bargain, easily outpointing wines costing far more. It is due for release in September, and will sell out immediately.
"put this in a blind tasting with top–end Cote-Rotie wines of the Rhone Valley and it would be a bargain, easily outpointing wines costing far more"
Light, bright crimson-purple; a highly fragrant bouquet of red fruits and subtle spices leads into a medium-bodied palate; here more savoury characters join the fruit, lengthening the finish. Drink to 2025. 95
James Halliday, The Weekend Australian Magazine, August 6-7, 2011
"If you're going to follow up a Wine of the Year, you may as well do it with another classic. Beautifully measured, balanced, perfumed and textured,
"another classic"
this remarkable wine truly underscores the international quality of this label... 97 points."
Jeremy Oliver, Australian Wine Annual 2012
An elegant, cool, spice-laden Clonakilla that I adore! Beautifully floral, swimming in violets, exotic spice sarsaparilla, tiny dark berries and white and green pepper.
"beautifully floral, swimming in violets, exotic spice sarsaparilla"
Taut and edgy with beautifully honed, fineground, granitic tannins. Sensational reflection of a cooler season. Drink 2015-2020. 96
Tyson Stelzer, Wine Taste, August 11, 2011
2010 Shiraz Viognier
Price: $85
Shiraz Viognier
Every year at Clonakilla we fill a single fermenter with pure Shiraz from our North-East facing T and L vineyard.
The winemaking is kept as simple as possible. Whole berries are fermented warm by their own native yeasts. The 2010 spent three weeks macerating on skins and fifteen months maturing in French oak, a third new.
Murrumbateman is increasingly recognised as one of Australia’s great Shiraz regions. This wine demonstrates why.
Potent spice aromas, red berries, violets, wild game and black pepper lead onto a finely textured, medium bodied palate. A classic cool-climate Shiraz.
Drink over five to ten years.
Six bottles per customer.
The pure, minerally Syrah from Clonakilla is a marvellous wine, with distinctive fine pepper and spice, graphite and dark stony aromas, gun-flint and a core of dark plum fruits.
"Terrific wine of terroir"
The palate's built on a sturdy tannin frame that has plenty of length and composed, elegant shape, essence-like purity and pepper-dusted plum and red fruits, with a spicy twist as oak chimes in. Terrific wine of terroir. 96
Nick Stock - The Age/SMH Good Wine Guide 2012
2010 Syrah
Price: $85
Syrah
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