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St Hallett Poachers Blend Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2007 Vintage Good winter rains, a mild spring and one of the coolest January’s on record was followed by two sudden bursts of very hot weather in earlymid February. Despite the odd scorched leaf and bunch, the good vine canopies and soil moisture reserves from deep winter rains ensured most vineyards held out well for the ideal ripening conditions that followed right through to early May. As a result it has been a good year with particular retention of good varietal fruit aromas and flavours. Vineyards In order to maintain consistency, grapes for this wine are sourced from many varied sites in the Barossa & Eden Valleys with parcels being contributed from almost all of our growers within the region. Vinification St Hallett’s aim is to preserve the fresh fruity flavours by gentle handling, minimal finings and additions, and by keeping the fruit and juices as cool as possible. The fruit is crushed and pressed immediately on arrival at the winery. The more delicate flavoured free run juice is separated from the fuller flavoured, higher phenolic juices characteristic of the pressings. The aim is to leave in a certain level of phenolics to lift the fruit flavours, to give the wine a "backbone" and balance the acidity level. The separate parcels of free run and pressings juices are left to cold settle before the clear juice is racked off the thick grape solids. At this stage the winemakers assess the juice, blend some of the parcels together and prepare the juice for primary yeast fermentation. The philosophy of the blending at this stage is to put the same varieties displaying similar characteristics together, allowing for reassessment of suitability after fermentation. This ensures that a wide choice of fruit is available for the final blending of the Poachers Blend. Each varietal batch is fermented in tank at relatively cool temperatures of 12 – 14oC using a neutral yeast to maintain the fresh fruit characters of the juice. As each ferment nears completion, it is tasted daily then stopped by rapid chilling when the natural residual sugar level remaining lifts and balances the flavour/phenolics in the wine. Each batch of new wine is racked off yeast lees as soon as the yeast has settled out and stored cool in tank, with each varietal batch remaining separate until blending 4 months after vintage.