Introducing myself as the girlfriend of Turon , or my preferred title of chief cellar hand at Turon Wines. I must disclose, I have no official wine education or title, other than working three vintages with Turon and learning to truly appreciate a good vintage dinner of a hot chook and coleslaw. I am a physiotherapist by trade, a wheat farmer's daughter and prior to meeting Turon I would prefer a vodka and lime over wine any day. The tables have since turned.

Throughout the first few years of my relationship with Turon social outings with winemakers were always super-fun wine filled experiences. But I'd have to say, they were also fairly overwhelming. Sometimes they still are. I can honestly say that half the time I had absolutely no idea what they were getting excited about and as a result I felt like a real mere mortal.

Let's set the scene: dinner with winemakers always involves bringing 'interesting' wine from their cellar that winemakers will appreciate (I'm not complaining - they are always absolutely delicious for my mortal palate). At these dinners, conversation will quickly turn into a wine buzz word frenzy as soon as they hand over the 'interesting' wine at the door. As they get more excited, whether it is simply from witnessing the array of wine lined up for the night or because they are three bottles in, buzz words will just keep coming thick and fast. It is at this point I would try my hardest to listen, learn and contribute as best I could before sitting back to sip on the delicious wine and really try to work out what the f!*k they were saying.

So I would sheepishly like to share my thoughts from these initial dinners. Here is a list of my WTF moments with 'wine talk':

Whole bunch

A whole bunch of what?

Basket-pressed Shiraz

Sounds fancy.

Cold stabilisation

I shiver when I'm cold.

Cool climate

Sounds cold.

'Malo' aka malolactic fermentation

Sounds like 'milo', which is also delicious.

Tannin

Big fat old buzz word. Keeps popping up. Note: use in reference to red.

Nebbiolo

Is that a winemaking process?

Extended Maceration

Sounds like: castration, and apparently different to pre-fermentation cold maceration.

Bunch thinning

What's the point in whole bunch then?

Lactic Acid

Physio talk - I know this.... apparently not.

Blanc de Blanc / Blanc de Noir

I need to learn more french.

Strawberry, rhubarb, chocolate...

I taste red, delicious red red wine.

Cellar for 10 years

But seriously, what's the whole deal with that?

Wendouree

Apparently an exclusive /rare wine - making note for later conversations.

Malbec goes into that

Is that the same as Malo? or Milo?

Whole bunch pressing

So why is that different to whole bunch fermentation?

Wild ferment

Are the happy grapes free range?

Natural wine

This red tastes fizzy- is it meant to be like that?

I'd like to think I have learnt a bit, but 5 years in there are still times where the wine kids are talking wine talk and it completely baffles me. But at the end of the day I'm not complaining! I will continue to enjoy delicious wine and dinner conversation!

Note: I do 100% credit these dinners with winemakers to my 'maturing' palate - so thanks guys and girls! Dinner soon? I'll cook.

Wine is the balance between art and science.

When I was first asked why I chose winemaking as a career I actually had to stop and think about it; because I love it? Yes, but there is more to it than that.

Growing up, I always had an interest in chemistry, biology, geology and geography but these pure sciences leave very little for personal interpretation or room to put your personal thumbprint on something. Winemaking seems to allow you to float between the pure science and artistic worlds, as you are required to be very specific with your calculations yet you have the freedom to artistically decide the outcome of the wine’s characters.

The Science

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification and taxonomy.

Winemakers need an understanding of biology to make wine, this includes the understanding of grapevines and the microbes. Grapevine biology is an important and complex process, as the same variety can grow and react very differently from site to site. An in depth understanding of a vineyard site needs to be match with an in depth knowledge of vine and grape biology in winemaking. Natural microorganisms such as yeast and bacteria are found in the vineyard and can vary widely in species. These microorganisms ultimately drive the wild fermentation process (fermentation being the important process in making alcohol). Each different parcel of grapes will bring a host of different microbes that will give each site a unique character when allowed to ferment naturally.

Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter.

As a winemaker, you need an in-depth knowledge of wine chemistry and what will lead to positive or negative outcomes. For example, you need to understand the fermentation and ageing process and how the different properties of a wine such as alcohol, acid, tannin, oxygen and anthocyanin interact to give you a predictable outcome that will affect your wine stylistically. Understanding these processes will allow the winemaker to either help them along or stop them during the winemaking process. Anyone can squash grapes in a bucket and leave them in the sun but ultimately it is one's understanding of science that will allow those grapes to turn into wine, not a bucket of vinegar.

Geology is an earth science comprising the study of solid earth and the rocks of which it is composed.

The type of soil vineyards are grown on influence the heat retention/reflection, nutrient and water access to a vine. Well draining lean soils produce the most concentrated fruit characters, while deep rich and overly watered soils will result in over vigorous vines with watered down fruit characters.

Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the land, the features and phenomena of the earth.

The geographical nature of a vineyard site will influence the character of a wine. With site orientation and local influencing characters such as a large body of water that can affect the temperature of a vineyard and the amount of sunshine hours it receives. All these factors work together differently to shape a vineyard site and the potential varieties it is suitable for.

The Art Form

While science is the backbone of making wine, a winemaker’s personal preferences and winemaking style is what makes wine an art form.

Winemakers have many decisions to make in the process of making wine, these include what winemaking processes to use, where to source the grapes and personal tastes. These decisions will influence the wine’s character and taste.

The Process

The winemaker will decide how the wine will be made, as there are multiple processes, for example if the wine will be be matured in oak (French, Hungarian or American?) or stainless steel and how long the wine will be in barrel before bottling. Biodynamic, organic, minimal intervention are increasingly becoming more popular, each slightly different than the other, and each influencing the character of a wine in slightly different ways.

Sourcing Fruit

A winemaker also has to decide where they will source their fruit from. Geographical location, region and vineyard, will influence the taste of the wine. The Adelaide Hills is a cool climate region, where the Barossa Valley is more warm climate. Grapes sourced from these regions will produce different tastes due to the difference in the sugar levels, fruit ripening development and speed, soils and a range of smaller variations from subregion to subregion, vineyard to vineyard. Ultimately, the winemaker will decide what characters they are looking for and seek grapes from sites that support those characters.

Personal Taste

Flavour wise, a winemaker’s palate and olfactory centre is their most powerful tool. The sense of taste and smell can be honed and can detect nuances positive or negative far more quickly than a machine. Ultimately a winemaker will set out knowing what they want the wine to taste like. Using their taste and smell through the process will help them make decisions in the way the wine is made to aid winemakers producing the style of wine they wish to achieve. These senses are very personal and rely on the winemaker's past experiences and personal preferences. Since no two people share the same palate and olfactory senses, the use of these two senses can make a wine really special and personal.

Winemaking generally requires a bit of science knowledge, experience and personal style. A general knowledge of pure science will help to make wine, but personal preferences, experiences and style will allow a winemaker to create wines that are different to their neighbours. This is what makes wine so unique and interesting. Ultimately, wine is the balance between art and science.

A lot has been happening around the cellar this year, we completed our biggest crush yet, 7.5 tonnes (woohoo!

- Rome wasn't built in a day right!?), and earthworks have been completed for the new winery to be built at the end of the year. We haven’t really slowed down and are so excited to share the fruits of our labour!

So, finally, here is our vintage report for this year:

The 2015/16 growing season was a near perfect one - a little dry, with a slightly larger than average crop. This was helped out by a healthy dose of rainfall in February as the grapes reached maturity and ensured that the grapes were of

excellent quality right to the finish line for both whites and reds.

Shiraz

Having Shiraz coming in from the warmer eastern edge of the hills saw this variety arrive at our doors first in mid March. This year's Shiraz fruit was well above average in colour with one of the parcels nearly ink black! A portion of the fruit was put across a sorting table and destemmed while the second small parcel was fermented as 100% whole bunch to give the wine that nice punchy cool climate spice and berry fruit. As per usual, all wild and opened fermented and now in French oak where they will spend the next 18 months maturing.

Chardonnay

The Piccadilly Chardonnay was second cab of the ranks this year arriving in late March. Normally you would expect the whites in first but because of the vineyard's location in the very cold Piccadilly Valley on the high western edge of the hills, this wine saw a very slow ripening period with good natural acidity and concentration of flavours. Whole bunch pressed we took the free run and fermented in seasoned French oak hogsheads. A cool steady ferment and subsequent malo-lactic fermentations see’s this year's chardonnay as a citrusy, elegant, crisp and extremely complex with nice nutty notes. Very excited to see this after its 9 months in oak maturing!

Pinot Noir

In 2016 we have been fortunate enough to play around with a new Pinot Noir site in the Piccadilly Valley.

Planted to cuttings from Burgundy and I think it is some of our most exciting and intriguing Pinot yet! Last fruit to come in, in late April we destemmed half of it and fermented the other half as whole bunch in our little open fermenters. This created two very unique wines that will be a lot of fun to blend once they’ve finished hanging out in some french oak for 18 months.

What’s New?

The 2016 vintage saw the vision of Alex come to fruition this year making our first Rose! Made from the elegant Pinot Noir and the more brutish Shiraz we could not be more happy with how this turned out. So very, very dry and a beautiful salmon pink in colour its time in stainless steel tank saw it develop great strawberry and rhubarb characters with refreshing natural crispness. All I can say is hurry up summer so I can drink this by the river on a sunny day.

All in all it's been a hectic but extremely fun vintage and we can't wait to show you all these wines.

I came to the Adelaide Hills in my teenage years after moving from a small town in south western New South Wales that was in the middle of a ten year drought. I instantly fell in love with the green rolling hills and the fact that there was always enough rain! After high school I started studying Oenology at the University of Adelaide and always considered the Adelaide Hills as the area I wanted to start producing my own wine from.

Working for several small wineries while studying at university, I saw that the Adelaide Hills was different to South Australia’s more established warmer wine regions. As I continued to study and travel to work vintages abroad, I kept coming back to the Adelaide Hills and felt that it had real potential for producing premium and exciting cool climate wines.

The Adelaide Hills has a variety of different soils and climates amongst its sub-regions. I feel this is why the region has the potential for producing a huge variation of high quality wine styles and varieties. It is this variation of site and climate that really excites me as a winemaker as these can affect the characters of a wine. I source grapes according to the geography and climate of a sub-region basing this upon the type of wine I wish to create. My philosophy is to make wine that allows site of the vineyard to influence the characters within the wine.

The Adelaide Hills has the potential to produce many high quality varieties of wine. It is well known for its white wines, namely the aromatic Sauvignon Blanc and mineral complex Chardonnay varieties. The cooler and wet western edge of the hills is well suited to the production of delicate varieties such as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The warmer easterly edges have the potential to produce Shiraz with elegant peppery characters through to the fuller bodied, more traditional masculine stonker red. There are some sub-regions that are also suited to producing alternative varieties such as Nebbiolo, Blaufrankisch, Saperavi, Arneis and Fiano, which I believe will only become more popular as drinkers look to trying new styles. It’s very difficult to make good wine from low quality grapes hence I am passionate about sourcing the best quality fruit I can from the region to produce what I believe is some of the best wine from the Adelaide Hills.

With this young region, there comes a new generation of winemakers, wineries and a huge amount of energy and passion. The Adelaide Hills is steadily developing its identity with the established wineries as well as an exciting new wave of natural and small batch movements. There is a community of collaboration and innovation which makes this a very cool place to start my career in the industry.

I look forward to continuing to produce modern and elegant wine from the Adelaide Hills and hope you can enjoy each vintage knowing they will be quality assured and uniquely individual, allowing the variety and site of the vineyard to speak for themselves. Most of all I hope you can enjoy them with good company and good times, after all, life is too short not to!