Octopus 2021 Rosé Nebbiolo Sangiovese Victoria
Savoury, dry grown up Rosé
Rose petals, strawberries and cream
48 hours on skins, barrel fermented and matured in old oak
Drink me with other pink things that you love to eat
Eat with your mouth full and you are trying to say Zdravstvuyte in Russian
This is not one of those fluffy pink styles of Rosé. It’s serious. It’s grown up. It’s orange. We made it with a mix of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo all fermented together in old French oak barriques without any temperature control except for some forklifting in and out of the cellar if it got either too hot or too cold.
The thing that we loved about making this wine the most, apart from hunting around for bungs that kept popping out of the barrels as the CO2 inside the barrel got too much, was the colour. Initially it was watermelon pink and we were thinking, oh no! This is terrible. It’s way too pink and looks like some sort of Barbie outfit. But then amazingly, once the ferment was all done and the wines were sitting quietly in barrel doing their thing over winter, the colour started to mellow to a lighter pink and then suddenly, it totally changed tack and went orange! We couldn’t believe it! From watermelon to burnt orange in just 9 months or so.
We did some investigation and discovered that some Italian varieties, like Sang and Nebb, often drop their colour fast and to a brick colour which is what happened to this rosé. And the flavours were still all there too, intense with raspberry, cherry, strawberry plus some savoury creamy notes, making it perfect for a night with lots of smoked salmon, stinky soft cheeses and your favourite chilled tunes playing in the background.
So if you like your Rosés subtle and savoury or if you are more of a light red drinker, then get into this rosé as it will be sure to make you smile quietly inside. And take it to drink with your friends who say No Way Rosé, as this might just be the drop that converts them
