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Lina Lool 2021
A meld of meadow scent, honey, marzipan and a faint wisp of musk; lush and cool to smell and to taste. Generously proportioned, spice notes, almost a nut texture to balance. Excellent refreshing acidity; although golden, the wine palate displays the refinement of an amber wine. As the wine ages, musky notes transform to a creamy texture.
“Kathleen Quealy and Kevin McCarthy are at the cutting edge of skins-fermented aromatic whites. This beautiful blend of friulano, malvasia istriana, riesling and moscato giallo was fermented on skins in terracotta amphora and is seductively perfumed and grapey, with a silky, slippery texture.”
– Max Allen, Drinks Columnist, Financial Review, Nov 25, 2022.
“When malvasia, moscato giallo, friulano, riesling and ribolla gialla get together for a party lasting 146 days on skins, Lina Lool arrives. I love this wine. Swooning aromas and flavours of lychee, musk, pink grapefruit with peach-fuzz tannins all chewy and textural. It’s a savoury, dry wine with lemon salt, preserved lemon flavours and Japanese pickled ginger.”
– Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion August 2023
95/100 points, Gold Medal
LOOKS LIKE... Deep golden moving to amber
SMELLS LIKE... Persian quince, cinnamon, summer apricots and the sweet meadows that our turtles love to pick through
DRINK WITH... A table loaded with Maha-inspired Meze: buttery pastries enclosures of creamy scallops, whipped macadamia, spring onions & pine nuts.
CELLAR UNTIL... 2025
Winery
Blending grapes with various positive attributes can build a complex wine naturally and make the total wine far greater than the sum. In this case by weight Malvasia Istriana 46%, Moscato Giallo 22%, Friulano 17%, Riesling 11% and Ribolla 5%.
Aromatic varieties, Malvasia, Riesling and Moscato Giallo, are all problematic fermenters because these grapes offer poor nutrition to yeast and the end aroma can be marred by a stinky fermentation. We co-ferment the aromatic varieties with Friulano so that the Friulano offers the yeast adequate nutrition for the entire blend. Add to this the ingress of oxygen through the terra cotta anfora and wide open top, and the ferment moves in a positive direction creating aroma, texture and vitality.
By August, the skins had sunk to the bottom clearly separated from the wine. We racked the wine off the skins on the 31st of August 2021. We hopped into the anfora to clean out the cake, this cake is not part of Lina Lool because the pressed juice is too coarse. Instead this the cake is directly distilled into Grappa. In this vintage we decided to hold the wine in barrel for an additional twelve months. Bottled on September 8th 2022. Zero residual sugar 12.2% OH 3.7 Ph
Tasting
The aroma is a subtle mixture of meadow flowers, honey, marzipan and a faint wisp of musk. It’s lush and cool to smell and to taste. Generously proportioned, spice notes, almost a nut texture to balance. The excellent acidity is refreshing and possible because of the cool maritime region and the selected varieties.
Lina Lool grapes were hand selected and did possess a small quantity of botrytis affected berries in many bunches. Close inspection and tasting in the field proposed to us we select ultimate picking dates. That is full volume aroma and flavour but without any heaviness or coarseness.
Five months maceration of skins after ferment in anfora. A low yield per tonne of this young wine. Further time in barrel amounting to sixteen months in total in small oak in cool store.
A food friendly wine especially suited to spices such as cardamom, turmeric and mild curry as well as the herbs watercress and chervil. Lina Lool matches nut dishes. Finally the subtlety of Lina Lool is a heavenly match with a buttery pastry.
Vineyard
Lina Lool is a field blend of the winery vineyard in Balnarring. The Riesling vines were planted in 1982 and are important in the blend for their lean muscle. Friulano and Moscato Giallo were planted in 2004 and more recently Malvasia Istriana. 2019 vintage stretched cool and dry until 5th April by which time these grapes were harvested. Whilst Riesling grapes are quite petite, the rest are heavy grape bunches that require a lot of grooming and selection to make suitable for premium vinification.
FYI
The name Lina Lool is derived from Linalool, a terpene synthesized in berries and stored in their skins. Linalool is found in the aromatic varieties Malvasia Istriana, Moscato Giallo and Riesling. It’s the maceration time on skins that releases the musky intensely floral aromatics.
Details
Vintage 2021
Picked: 30th March to the 15th of April 2021, Moscato Giallo, Friulano, Riesling + Malvasia istriana
Bottled 8th September 2022