Dalrymple Vineyards

Q. What is the difference between wooded and unwooded wines?
A. The simple answer is wood but there is more to it than that. As wines age in the bottle they lose fruit and acid. The wood fills out the middle palate and more than compensates for the losses. However, many people love the fresh fruit flavours and do not like oak. They should drink young wines and leave the oak devotees the older wines.

Q. How long should I cellar a Tasmanian white wine?
A. The cool climate in Tasmania makes it difficult to produce many varieties that flourish on the mainland. The benefit is our leaves stay on the vines we can grow, stay on the vines for longer, and while they are photosynthesising, they are building up flavours in the grapes. This allows us to pick in April/May, long after the mainland crops.

Our higher acid levels mean increased longevity. Given good cellaring, our Unwooded Chardonnay should last three to four years from vintage and the Sauvignon Blanc about two to three years.

Q. Most of the Chardonnays we drink from the Barossa or the Hunter Valley are slightly buttery. Why are yours so different?
A. We do not put our Chardonnays through malolactic acid fermentation. This is a secondary fermentation introduced by the winemaker to convert one of the natural acids in a grape - malic acid - into lactic acid. It is the lactic acid that creates the buttery texture, but it can also push the fruit flavours back., so we do not use any "malo" in our Chardonnays.

Q. Your Sauvignon Blanc tastes of passionfruit. Do you add passionfruit to it?
A. No - passionfruit flavours are often found in Sauvignon Blanc wines from cooler areas such as Tasmania or New Zealand. There are other fruit flavours in our Sauvignon Blanc wines such as gooseberry and lychee tastes - we certainly do not add either of these fruits to our wines. Lychees would cost us fortune!

Q. Why don't you produce Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz wines?
A. It is too cold here to ripen either of these varieties. We did have some Cabernet planted here, but we have now grafted them over to Pinot Noir, which we harvest in late April or early May. Pinot Noir in the warmer states is normally picked in January or early February.

Q. Some Pinot Noir wines are very light in flavour, more like raspberry cordial, so why are yours so big and rich?
A. Dalrymple is planted on slopes that face northeast. This gives us maximum sunlight hours. We keep the vines trimmed during summer and, closer to harvest we also take the leaves off so that the sun can reach the fruiting levels. As a result, our Pinots are rich and powerful wines.

Q. How do you get such small bubbles in your Sparkling wine?
A. The size of the bubbles - or bead - in sparkling wines is dependant on the amount of time they spend fermenting in the bottle. More time means smaller bubbles, but it also adds to the cost of a bottle of fizz.

Q. Why is your sparkling wine white when it is made from Pinot Noir grapes?
A. The colour comes from the skin; once the skin is removed, the remaining grape is white. The skins are removed as the grapes are crushed.

Q. Why don't you have your wines in the fridge?
A. To get the best aromas and flavours from, it should not be too cold. Our cellar door does not get much direct sunlight, so the wines stay fairly cool. Sometimes I do refrigerate them on a hot summer's day. Queenslanders tell me they chill both their whites and their reds. That is a matter of choice - if you pour a glass of wine in Cairns, it will be Tassie room temperature in about a minute.

Q. All your wines have screw caps - is this to save the cork oak trees of Portugal?
A. We have experimented with many different forms of closures, and we have found that the screw caps keep the wines fresher for far longer - and you can never get a corked bottle! We like metal closures so much that we are releasing some sparkling wines with crown seals.

Q. But doesn't a cork allow the wine to breathe, so that it matures in the bottle?
A. On the contrary, there have been many scientific experiments which show that corks do not allow wines to breathe. A wine will mature in the bottle regardless of the closure - it just takes longer with a screw cap.

DALRYMPLE FAQ's