2022 Ochota Barrels "Where's the Pope?" Syrah McLaren Vale

Winemaker Notes: “Clove and spiced blood orange basted in the elaborate flavors rustic bouillon. There is an ebb and flow of white sage, peppercorn and bay leaf, but ultimately this potion is awash with lashings of freshly picked fingerstaining dewberry, raspberry coulis, black forest cherries and suede. (yes….suede!!) keep that mind alive pussysausage.” – Taras Ochota

‘Where’s the Pope?’ – a pioneering thrash/hardcore band from ‘Radelaide’. ‘Where’s the Pope?’ – a pioneering response to the queen m-f of a harvest in 2020, but the Vale was spared and produced some of the most sumptuous fruit. Taras and Amber didn’t have any Adelaide Hills Syrah to play with in 2020 as it was pretty much all smoke tainted or the vineyards were destroyed so they had an idea (and they were always good ones…), why not take the Syrah from the insane ‘Green Room’ site? Amber continued this path in 2021 and 2022. The schist soils form a diametric point with the carbonically macerated, early picked Syrah to find that vortex of calamity and calmness. A little less skin contact in 2022 leaves this wine slightly less tannic (though it wasn’t that tannic to begin with) and a little more crunchy and bright. The fruit was hand-picked in early February and fermented entirely native whole-bunch outdoors in half-ton bins. The fruit was left between a 7-10 days with a bit of hang plunging in the latter days. The lots were then basket-pressed to old French barriques with the gross lees. The wine matured for five months then the barrels were gravity fed to tank and left to settle overnight. The wine was bottled without fining or filtration and just a small 50ppm sulfur addition.

Ochota Barrels, a project started by Taras and Amber Ochota in 2000, is a name that typifies the new wave winemaking scene in South Australia. The concept was to concentrate on the zenith variety of McLaren Vale (Grenache) and the Barossa Valley (Shiraz), find an exceptional old vineyard site in each region, and create vivid, highly textured, small batch, single-vineyard wines. Over the years, the regions and vineyards have evolved slightly, but the focus has remained the same. The Ochotas have always taken a less is more approach to winemaking and have infused their love for music into their wines. In fact, the majority of the wines are named after their favorite bands/songs (Fugazi, Slint, I am the Owl, Texture Like Sun, etc.). Taras once said, “I reckon you can often see the styles of music people like in the wines they make. I like edgy music, rawer, sharper, and my wines tend to be all elbows and knees sticking out." After Taras' untimely death in 2020, Amber has continued to make the same minimalist, single-vineyard wines, honoring Taras' dying wish.