The Barossa is the foremost premium wine district of Australia and one of the top 10 wine growing regions of the world. It boasts a 175 year old European wine culture and tradition. The unique juxtaposition of the cool climate, rolling hillside higher altitude, wetter Eden Valley with its undulating slopes of skeletal soils (micas, quartzes and schists) and the warm climate, low rainfall, lower-lying, flatter Barossa Valley with its famous terra rosa creates one of the world's truly unique and precious viticultural gems! This in turn allows a huge diversity of terroir and fruit expression, notably of the region's Shiraz, Grenache and Riesling which are the oldest and amongst the finest in the world.
Maverick fruit comes from 7 vineyards, each in a very diffeernt area of the Barossa and Eden Valleys, giving us the ability to create unique vineyard specific wines expressing our fabulous, diverse and complex terroirs.
The Barossa Wine Region is broadly divided into 2 regions; Barossa Valley and Eden Valley. Within these regions are unique sites that sharply focus general regional wine styles into vineyard and even block specific wines that are a true reflection of that site’s terroir.
Maverick has 6 vineyards, each in very different areas of the Barossa giving it the ability to create unique vineyard specific wines.
Understanding the concept of "Terroir" is fundamental to Maverick's plans to create site specific wines. Terroir is a French term meaning total elements of the vineyard.
Specific elements that contribute to a grape's composition and resultant wine style include:
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One of the great aspects of the Barossa as a wine region is its unparalleled vine clonal diversity. As one of the first wine regions established in Australia it has many vineyards of significant age, many of which were established using vine planting material taken from the famous European wine regions before they were ravaged with phylloxera. This clonal material had been selected over generations of cultivation in Europe and is now preserved in some of the oldest "own rooted" vineyards in the world in the Barossa. The absence of phylloxera, which is regarded as the world's worst grape pest and has been responsible for the transition of own rooted vines to the use of rootstocks in most grape growing areas of the world, has meant Barossa vineyards have survived the test of time.
The maverick vineyards
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A look at this map is enough to give everyone an idea of the diversity of the Maverick vineyards. As always, the distances and resulting logistical hurdles are an accountant's nightmare but a winegrower's dream - at Maverick we always focus on the very best results irrespective of the difficulty and cost of achieving them! |
