2019 Young Gun of Wine - First Drop Danger Zone Award
Wow what a whirlwind experience to say the least! Dirt Candy has been awarded its first major trophy at the 2019 Young Gun of Wine with the First Drop Danger Zone Award for our 2018 "The Little Circus". This award is given to the wine deemed the 'most adventurous' in the competition and it’s fair to say we are a little excited. There is such an array of exciting young winemakers in Australia right now who are making amazing wines using any number of varieties and innovative techniques, so to be recognised for not only producing a standout wine, but also an innovative one, is certainly an award we are proud to have won.
The idea for "The Little Circus" was born as I attempted to craft a wine that matched the personality of my four year old daughter Emily - an all singing and dancing vibrant little girl who can be laughing and then crying within the space of a few minutes. We call her our 'one woman circus' so decided that the name of her wine would be "The Little Circus" and that I would work to get as many personalities as I could in to the one bottle.
The result was achieved by picking every red grape variety I could get my hands on (Shiraz, Merlot, Touriga Nacional, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) and then throwing in some Traminer skins from our 2018 "The Renegade" to provide added aromatics. The fruit was hand-picked over a few days by simply driving around in a ute with a set of snips and load of buckets. All of the fruit was then thrown into a large grape picking bin and foot crushed. It was inoculated using a mix of two different yeast strains before heading off to a two-year old oak barrique. The wine was finally filtered and lightly fined before heading off to bottle.
Respected wine judge and critic Nick Stock said “The threading together of no less than six different red grapes and glazing them with the skins of the white Traminer grape is brave, evocative and just the right kind of crazy, and to do all this in the Hunter Valley, Australian wine’s poster child of conservative, stoic and traditional winemaking is straight-up nuts. Then again the wine is so freakin’ delicious, the back label probably won’t even get a look. So they won’t notice – genius!”
For those of you that know our wines you know that at Dirt Candy we like to do things a little differently to stand out from the crowd and I think this wine is a perfect example. With the 2019 version now safely away in barrel I look forward to continually pushing the boundaries and enjoying the ride.
We have limited amounts of the 2018 "The Little Circus" left and expect it to sell out soon. If you want to try some for yourself (it will cellar nicely for the next 5+ years) we suggest you grab some quickly.
You can shop "The Little Circus" here
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