DAOSA Natural Réserve NV

Description

Terre à Terre Wines (meaning ‘Down to Earth’) are Xavier Bizot (son of the late Christian Bizot of Bollinger fame) and wife Lucy Croser (daughter of Brian and Ann Croser).

The Bizot vineyard, one of the highest altitude vineyards at 550m in the heart of the Piccadilly Valley in the Adelaide Hills, was planted by Christian Bizot in 1995/1996 with various Chardonnay clones on the expert advice of Lucy’s father Brian Croser from Petaluma. The Bizot Vineyard – red clay and sandy loams over a 70 million-year-old shale rock formation – was leased to Petaluma for the Croser sparkling label. However in 2009, the fruit from the higher part of the vineyard was retained for the first time by Terre à Terre in order to produce a Single Vineyard Blanc de Blancs names DAOSA ((Dedicated Artisans of South Australia).

In 2016 they made their first Pinot Noir sparkling base from selected Piccadilly Valley blocks and destined for their first release of the DAOSA Natural Réserve NV in 2018.

Experimentation and observation has led Xavier and Lucy to believe that the Piccadilly Valley is one of the greatest regions in Australia for sparkling wine.

About this wine from the winemaker: “This is the seventh release of our DAOSA Natural Réserve from our Piccadilly Valley vineyards. The wine is a Pinot Noir (57%)  Chardonnay (35%)  and Pinot Meunier (8%)  blend, made following the principles of our “Method Classic” TM. The wine exhibits classic Pinot Noir characters with subtle strawberry notes, and expressive Chardonnay fruit on the middle palate. It is tempered by a fine bead, with a beautiful complexity and length from the Réserve wines. A classic example of Australian sparkling wine, made in the traditional method.

“DAOSA is made following the Méthode Traditionnelle (Method Classic TM) used in the Champagne region of France. Perfectly ripe Pinot Noir fruit for sparkling was handharvested in March 2022. The fruit was whole bunch pressed, retaining only 600L per tonne of fruit pressed. This gave very fresh acidity, clean juice and good primary fruit characters prior to fermentation. The juice was fermented cool in stainless-steel tank. Once primary fermentation was complete, the wine went through malolactic fermentation in tank. Before tirage, the wine was blended (assemblage) with some 2020 and 2021 Réserve Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (15% Réserve wines in the final blend) and aged in large old foudres without sulphur. The wine was then “tiraged” early October 2022 with the addition of yeast and sugar prior to bottling, to induce secondary fermentation in bottle. The resultant sparkling wine was aged on lees before disgorging, with first batch disgorging in April 2024.

“The fruit was sourced from several high altitude vineyard sites in the Piccadilly Valley, most of them with eastern aspects. All vineyards are on clay soils, with the geological formation mainly Basket Range Sandstone, Woolshed Flat Shale, or Barossa Complex. All vineyards are at a minimum altitude of 500m, and were planted in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The Piccadilly vineyards are all managed by Terre à Terre, following the same strict management practices as the Crayères Vineyard, including hand pruning (Guyot Double), shoot thinning, green harvest to control yields, and hand harvesting.

“The climate in the Piccadilly Valley has a long-term average of 1,172 degree days during the growing season. Yearly rainfall is approximately 1,100mm. The 2021/2022 growing season started cooler than average, but the temperatures post-véraison were marginally warmer than average, creating perfect conditions for the ripening of our sparkling base varieties. Yields were low, in particular for Pinot Noir, however quality for the sparkling base is superb in 2022, with very good acidities and flavour profiles.”

Wow pedigree in spades here … don’t miss this.

Review for previous disgorgement: 94 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front “This is flavoursome. This is energetic. This is edgy. It tastes of strawberry and grapefruit, ginger-spice and sugared apples, a seaspray note in there too. There’s a lot of drive to this sparkling wine, let’s call it a thrust, but the flavour really spreads and expands too. It’s seriously good. One sip, wow, it’s got you.”

“A seriously good Australian sparkling wine.” – Huon Hooke, The Real Review

RRP $62  **OUR SPECIAL PRICE when you buy 6 or more only $44.99