Whinyard Rocks Col Rondo 2023

A sparkling red wine, naturally deep purple in colour. Stacked with the aromas of a crumpled bramble bush after a barn dance. Refreshingly crisp with freshly picked blackberries on the nose and palate.

Rondo grapes were handpicked in early October then crushed and destemmed. They were soaked on skins for 5 days, with one punch down. Then fermented in a stainless steel tank on the lees, bottled by hand by gravity in the spring. Made in the Col Fondo Italian ancestral method of re-fermentation in the bottle without disgorgement.

Whinyard Rocks is a small-scale low-intervention vineyard on a fourth-generation sheep farm. The name is taken from a distinctive outcrop of exposed late Silurian rock on the farm. The vineyard began in 2017, when James and Susan moved from London with the dream of making wine on the family farm, and planted 800 vines by hand with friends. The vineyard now contains five white varieties – hybrids solaris, phoenix and muscaris, plus non-hybrids ortega and bacchus – and two hybrid reds – rondo and regent – for their flavour profiles and plucky ability to tolerate the valley’s altitude and cool Welsh climate. This spring, James and Susan planted 1600 more vines including two new red varieties – Cabaret Noir and Pinot Noir Précoce. The grapes are grown regeneratively and ferment on indigenous wild yeasts. Winemaking is done with a low-intervention approach and no synthetic chemicals are used in either the vineyard and winery. The wines contain no added sulphur, and don’t undergo any fining or filtering.