Clovella Mataro Grenache

Magpie is a joint venture between noted Barossa winemaker Rolf Binder and Cambridge-based wine merchant Noel Young. Both Rolf and Noel have a passion for Rhone varietals and this comes through in their wines, which use fruit from 15 long-favoured sites in the premium northern Barossa, drawing on Rolf's deep understanding of the area... Noel then sneaks out into the night in a rubber catsuit and steals all the best fruit from these growers! The labels celebrate a superstitious theme, saluting the magpie, and we count ourselves lucky to have them aboard.

Clovella Thatch was the dentist's assistant in the Russ Meyer boob-flick "Up". The label bears no relation at all but the sultry nature of the wine does. The design inspiration is from the meeting of mouths, that energy before lips meet whether lips meeting a glass of wine or each other. Two varietals blending into one.

Vineyards

Clovella is a field planting of roughly 70/30 Mataro and Grenache. It is a 40 year old vineyard from the Gomersal sub-district of the Barossa Valley that Rolf Binder and Noel Young have been cultivating themselves for many years.

Vinification

The wine spends 22 months in older French oak. The purpose of this wine is to show Mataro and Grenache with some development rather than the super-juicy-young bright Grenache of the moment.

Tasting Notes

The wine is deliciously soft, dark, voluptuous and headily perfumed with sultry spices, yet light on its feet and alarmingly more-ish. With only 600 cases ever possible from this tiny block, it is a wine and a project to savour.