Isabella 2008

Wine Notes
2008 was an excellent vintage for ‘Isabella’ Late Harvest Semillon. After a long “Indian Summer” the Semillon block at Paritua Vineyards captured enough humidity to trigger the start of botrytis. This “noble rot” was carefully monitored to eventually create a luscious and lingering sweet wine, with aromas of dried apricot, pawpaw and marmalade. The palate is soft with a gentle sweetness, encapsulating flavours of honeyed stone fruit and mandarin.

Foodmatch
‘Isabella’ is a perfect accompaniment to all things sweet and delicious. The wine matches beautifully with lemon meringue pie or vanilla crème brulée. In time ‘Isabella’ will have accentuated honey characters and a smoother mouthfeel, making it a fantastic accompaniment to fine blue cheese.

Viticulture
Semillon grapes for Isabella are planted towards the south end of the Paritua Vineyard estate. A rigorous canopy management plan ensures that the grapes achieve full ripeness before botrytis sets in. Bunches were hand selected at 36 and 38 Brix to ensure they were perfectly botrytised and transferred to the winery for processing.

Cellaring Potential
A pleasure to drink now and cellaring will reward the diligent consumer.

Winemaking
Botrytised fruit was whole bunch pressed then settled for several days. Ideal fermentation conditions were maintained to create a wine of 11% alcohol, at which point the ferment naturally stops. In addition to the stainless steel ferment, a small portion of this wine was fermented in oak barrels to add structure. A light fining took place before bottling in November of 2008.

Technical Information
Alcohol by volume 11%
238 Cases made
Titratable Acidity 7.5
pH 3.51
Residual sugar 158g/L
Closure: Stelvin