Chalmers Bush Vine Negroamaro

The most captivating aromas spring from the Bush Vine Negroamaro as soon as you pour a glass; broody dark fruits, red berries, bramble and hard herbs to name a few. You could just sit and smell this wine all night. On the palate it’s a charming mix of power and elegance, depth and light, fruit and spice. A special bottle to be shared with good friends and great food.

Negroamaro is a Puglian grape variety from the Adriatic facing side of the ‘heel of the boot’ in southern Italy. It is a vigorous and upright vine and as such has a traditional bush vine cultivation history, although most plantings are trellised now. It has large bunches and large berries, characteristics not usually associated with fine wine varieties, but in our Bush Vine vineyard where we are growing grapes in a hot climate with minuscule amounts of water and very few inputs, this is a benefit. The red sand and limestone soil gives the grapes grown here an ethereal quality, a purity and fruit intensity that makes them so appealing. These vines were planted in 2016 but already have trunk 20cm in diameter. They’re happy vines.

Grapes are hand-picked in stages as they mature. Usually two or three different harvests. The yields are kept low and the half-hectare block usually only makes around 150 cases of wine. Hand picked grapes are destemmed into open fermenters and allowed to start fermenting naturally with wild yeast. Usually the earlier picked parcels are pressed in around three weeks while the later picks can have extended maceration up to six weeks. After pressing it goes into stainless steel barrels for ageing for twelve months before being hand bottled, unfined and unfiltered in our Mebrein winery.