The King Skink 2024 Carbonic Merlot

This King Skink is made from a small parcel of Merlot grown at Redtail Creek. It is located in Rosa Glen, South-east of Margaret River, which experiences a larger diurnal range compared to the more coastal and Northern growing regions of the southwest. Soils on the block are loamy with a high content of white clay.

The King Skink is the first wine that Che truly felt embodied the idea of NeoTeric, the small parcel of fruit was a perfect opportunity to put his twist on a common variety of the region, with the goal of making a lighter more approachable style Merlot. 2024 was an extremely hot and fast vintage, as a result the fruit was picked in late February, very early for Merlot, with a large portion of raisining in the bunches. The fruit was left whole bunch to carbonically macerate in a stainless-steel tank for a two week period, enhancing the lighter fruit characters of the wine without extracting too much tannin from the riper berries. After this period the clusters were basket pressed and barrelled down to neutral oak to finish fermentation.

The wine was then bottled after ten months ageing in barrel.