Dandelion Vineyards

Dandelion Vineyards was started by Bulgarian born winemaker Elena Brooks and her husband Zar. They grow their own grapes as well as source fabulous old vine fruit from some of the finest family vineyards in Barossa, McLaren Vale, and Eden Valley. Their wines represent decades of experience, blending the fruit of the heirloom vineyards with the finest traditions of artisan winemaking. Their aim is to express the terroir of each specific vineyard site. "Dandelion is one the new producers now entering the market, whose wines have developed an impassioned following. Elena Brooks is one of the new generation of star winemakers working in the Barossa and McLaren Vale." Lettie Teague - Wall Street Journal

Honeypot

This Honeypot Roussanne was made entirely from Helen and Mark O’Brien’s remarkable vineyard. Roussanne has a love-hate relationship with the Barossa as it can achieve some high-highs but also plenty of low-lows. Getting the acidity right is key and Elena is hyper-focused on that vs sugar levels. She also looks to bottle it early maintaining a lot of freshness and lacking the weight that the Rhône white grapes are known for. The result is a mineral-driven style of Roussanne that is a bridge to the Rhône for many.

Whole bunches of hand tended and hand harvested Roussanne was picked in the cool of early morning then gentled crushed with only the free run juice being fermented without any additions in a stainless-steel tank. The wine sat on the fine lees for three months without battonage and was racked and bottled three months later. It was bottled without filtration and with a small addition of sulfur.

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Wishing Clock

Elena really loves Sauvignon Blanc, but unfortunately it is a variety that is difficult to find great material in South Australia. Much of the clonal material produces too fruity of berries and lacks the savage herbaceous-ness that Sauvignon Blanc wants to show balanced by mouth watering citrus and a mineral drive. There is a site in Woodside in the Adelaide Hills that Zar helped track down. This vineyard has heritage clone material but relatively young vines. Bill & Vicki Borchardt own this little slice of Sauvy heaven atop Teakle’s Hill. The fruit was hand selected and picked on the first week of March in the cool of early morning then destemmed in small batches without crushing the fruit followed by gentle pressing to tank. Only the free run juice is used and fermented with carefully selected yeasts in small tanks at a very cool temperature (12-14ºC). After primary fermentation finished the wine was cooled down even further to block secondary fermentation from being carried out. The wine aged in tank for six months prior to being bottled with a light filtration and fining.

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Enchanted Garden

The “Enchanted Garden” was planted in 1910 and thrives to this day, a seven-acre Eden Valley Vine Garden lovingly tended by Sue and Stuart Woodman. Elena always knew this would be one of the most special vineyards in the Dandelion family and it was a relationship that Zar had with the Woodman’s to make this happen.

Whole bunches were hand-picked the first week of March then de-stemmed without crushing the fruit to fill the press exactly. Juice from the free run and pressings were separated then fermented in small tanks at a cool temperature, between 35º-55ºF for a long fermenation. The wine has a high level of natural acidity, 6.4 grams per liter, a pH of 3.49 and although bone dry, only 11% alcohol. The wine was bottled directly from tank without fining and with a very coarse filtration to capture the essence of the vineyard, a looking glass if you will, and is ready to drink immediately or cellar for decades.

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Pride of the Fluerieu

This Pride of the Fleurieu Cabernet was grown in the family’s pride and joy, overlooking the Finniss River wetlands, Tony Brooks and Prof. Barbara Santich’s dry-grown ‘Stranger’s Reach Vineyard’ cooled by the Great Southern Ocean and Lake Alexandrina where low rainfall and deep alluvial soils encourage Cabernet to ‘populate or perish’.

Selected bunches were hand picked by family and friends in the last week of March and gently crushed into open top fermenters. After 8 days fermentation the wine was then basket pressed into some new but predominately older French Oak Barriques for 18 months maturation and then bottled without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of the vineyard and will reward cellaring and decanting.

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Lionheart

Lionheart Shiraz is aptly named after Barossa ‘s lifelong champion of old vines and Dandelion co-founder, Carl Lindner. These ancient, gnarled vines, many over a hundred years of age, are not only surviving but thriving on their own roots in some of the oldest soils on the planet. The ‘God’s Hill Vineyard’ is aptly named as it sits at 1,400 feet in elevation overlooking the Barossa Valley to the west. The 2019 vintage in the Barossa Valley was quite dry, but flavor and phenological ripening kept up with sugar development nonetheless.

In the first week of April whole bunches of Shiraz were hand harvested, then gently crushed and naturally fermented in open fermenters for eight days, hand plunged twice a day, before careful basket pressing into new (25%) and older French Oak Barriques to finish fermentation. After 18 months maturation and a racking in the same oak, the wine was bottled without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of Carl’s vines.

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Menagerie

At the end of Zar & Elena’s old vine garden path there is a historic ‘Menagerie’ of three grape varieties, adjoining blocks of Grenache, Shiraz and Mataró at Gomersal in the Barossa. These three grapes have been blended together for much longer than the first vines found their way to Australia, but the Barossa has really become a de facto new-world home for this trinity. The cool night of the Barossa really pull back the reins on the power and intensity that comes with the hot growing days. This vineyard in particular truly shines with elegance and purity as seen across multiple vintages.

After hand picking selected bunches of the Menagerie field blend in mid-March, Elena let the whole bunches ferment together in open top fermenters with ambient yeasts for 14 days, before basket pressing in old French Oak barriques. The wine was then matured for a further 12 months in the same oak, before bottling without fining or filtration and just a small addition of sulfur.

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Pedro Ximenez

The wish is to nurture the unique character of these extremely old (XOOO) Pedro Ximénèz vines, to capture them perfectly from barrel. The ‘Legacy of Australia’ is vigneron and lifelong champion of old vines and fortified wines, Carl Lindner. Carl and Zar have known each other since Zar was in diapers and that great connection was the catalyst for Dandelion Vineyards. Carl has some of the oldest and largest stocks of fortified wines in Australia and being able to produce a wine now from vines, many of which well over a hundred years old, and pulling from a well-aged solera is pretty astounding, especially given its price.

The Lindner family has been making this wine since 1944 from vineyards in Gomersal, just south of Seppeltsfield, planted 1904-1934. The gnarly, bush vines reach up from the earth as claws looking to grip the sky. The grapes are picked at optimum ripeness and left to dry in the sun. When the proper amount of evaporation+concentration has occurred, the grapes are pressed and fermented naturally in open-top wood fermenters. The resulting wine is very low in alcohol but extremely high in sugar and natural acidity and thus fortified with a neutral grape spirit. Each vintage the wine is produced and added to the solera, which now averages >35-years of age. Each year an amount equal to about 25% of the annual addition is pulled off in order to increase the stock of this wine, while ensuring the quality and age of the wine is maintained. The wine is hand blended and bottled without fining or filtration.

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