Louis Latour Agencies

Wakefield celebrate 50 years of winemaking

26 September 2019

2019 marks 50 years of winemaking and winegrowing by the Taylor family in the Clare Valley. Initially a family of publicans they made the move into the wine business inspired by their love of France’s Medoc wines. After visiting different grape growing area’s they settled on Clare Valley where the Terra Rossa soils offered the perfect home for the Cabernet Sauvignon they wished to grow.

To mark this special occasion Wakefield’s Neil Hadley MW visited London this September to present a special tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon and reveal Wakefield The Legacy, a very special wine created to mark the company’s first half century.

Neil began by setting the scene with a whistle-stop tour of the Clare Valley’s history beginning with the birth of planet earth and how different events over the last 4.6 million years have had an impact on what we find today.

From a geological perspective Australia’s position on a single tectonic plate has protected the land from high levels of seismic activity and has left its ancient soils intact. Furthermore the Clare Valley was once covered by sea and so marine deposits are found there. To top all of this off, regular natural fires have contributed to very poor soils that are ideal for vine cultivation.

Neil went on to explain that Clare Valley wine’s trademark freshness and acidity come from several different factors, one of the most important being the big diurnal temperature shifts that allow the grapes to develop slowly. In addition to this the land lies at fairly high altitudes, between 300 and 550 metres above sea level, so the vineyards are protected from high daytime temperatures that can lead to ‘jammy’ wines.

Moving on to the wines, Neil presented a selection of eight Cabernet Sauvignons from Estate level all the way through to The Legacy examining several vintages to explore how the wines age and develop. Neil was at pains to demonstrate the care and attention that winemaker Adam Eggins lavishes on every wine and spoke about his search for new techniques. His desire to avoid over extraction led him to borrow techniques from the chocolate industry where large amounts of chocolate need to be gently mixed. Following research Adam fitted rings to the base of his tanks which release small amounts of gas into the wine. As the gas rises and expands through the liquid it causes the wine and the cap to be stirred and leads to much gentler extraction in his reds when compared with punching down and pumping over. Stand out wines on the night included the Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2016, The Visionary 2010 and The Legacy 2014.

For a full list of the wines on tasting please contact us. All are available to order.