The traditional, simple, hands on art and craft of vine dressing and winemaking was perfected by the monks of Europe during the middle ages. At Sons & Brothers we still follow these same practices. From the vine to the bottle we rely on hand labour and small pieces of simple equipment to craft each vintage of our unique, single vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon dominant wine. We make only one wine, a bottle aged, late release, long lived dry red. It is typically elegant in style, medium in body, intense in flavour and tight in structure. It displays layers of complex flavours and has a savoury quality that allows it to compliment food rather than compete with it. Ideally it should be decanted half an hour before consumption to briefly oxygenate the wine and release its full potential and then enjoyed together with a meal. Recommended drinking is anytime between 6 and 10 years post vintage.

Quality red wines inevitably develop layers of more complex flavours during extended bottle maturation provided they have been made to age and have been sealed with a reliable long life closure. Sons & Brothers has been made to age and the seal we use is designed to keep each bottle air tight and taint free for at least 15 years. Our unique closure combines the corrosion free and mechanically perfect reliability of a stainless steel crown cap, with the tin/saran foil oxygen barrier and compression wad of a screw cap. This unique partnership results in a very robust and reliable, long-term wine seal.

Sons & Brothers is predominantly a Cabernet Sauvignon wine, but a small amount of Shiraz and a little bit of Savagnin are also included in the blend. Whereas the Cabernet gives the wine great structure and the ability to age well, the Shiraz and the Savagnin help to flesh it out and to increase texture and softness. Our winemaking includes the practice of some partial fruit drying prior to fermentation to increase body, flavour, colour and complexity. Fermentation occurs in small open vats which favour good oxygenation and skins/juice contact. The cellar temperature at harvest is always cool and this results in fermentation temperatures that remain within the range of 10 to 20°C. To cope with these cooler temperatures we use a cold tolerant but malolactic friendly hybrid yeast called S6U. This yeast is a high glycerol producer and this helps to strengthen the middle palate of the wine.

Malolactic fermentation is initiated after several days of primary fermentation so both occur simultaneously and are complete by the time the skins are pressed. We avoid rapid hot ferments, that destroy aroma compounds, by not using DAP or other artificial yeast nutrients. Only minor acid adjustments are usually required and no grape concentrate or sugar additions are ever used. The crushed and destalked grapes are left to slowly ferment on their skins for about 30 days before being drained off and pressed. We use a basket press that is ratcheted by hand and only return the first run very light pressings to the wine. Sulphur dioxide additions are not made until after the malo is complete and the wine has been run off lees into barrel to start its maturation. The final wine is neither fined nor filtered prior to bottling at about 14 months. The wine is then laid down for another five years of bottle maturation in our cool, dark cellar prior to release for sale.

Because Sons & Brothers is a single vineyard, hand crafted wine it will inevitably display vintage variation but in a world full of mass produced, vintage consistent, industrial blando-vino this makes it a very interesting alternative.