Yesterday we held our 2014 vintage #bucketwine tasting during the epic 15th Anniversary Cellarhand Trade Day at the Regent Theatre Plaza Ballroom.  Amidst the theatrical setting of the fantasy gothic room we  showed 25 wines from the 2014 vintage with particular stand out varieties on the day being greco, malvasia and schioppettino.

Just for fun we also ran a competition to give away a mixed 6 pack of 2014 #bucketwine to the person who could guess our blind mystery wine.  Guesses were tweeted with #winthebooze and, given we have over 40 varieties across 2 sites, there were a few super smart palates out there who got very close to the mark with this challenge.

We can now reveal the mystery #bucketwine:

It was in fact the wine that spawned the #bucketwine project.  A 2012 Heathcote fiano whole berry ferment which was topped up with vermentino juice and included just 5 berries of moscato giallo.  Roughly 90% fiano, 9.9% vermentino, 0.1% moscato giallo.  Fermented in the pump shed at Heathcote in a spring water bottle (needless to say we didn’t get our deposit back on this one…).  It was kept in the fermentation vessel for 2 months on skins and lees.  Aged for a further 2 months in demijohn then bottled with minimal sulphur.

We can announce that the winner of the competition was Jack from The Tasting Table who guessed 2012 Heathcote Fiano skin contact and thought it may have been made in an egg/amphora.  Funnily enough when Bart and I made this wine we were trying to probe the amphora concept by seeing if we could create the same texture and characteristics in the wine by doing the same methods but in a more neutral vessel.  I guess by Jack’s response we may have achieved the ‘amphora’ effect in the spring water bottle after all.

There were numerous well thought out entries in this challenge and some very well deserved honourable mentions to be awarded…

Simon from Bar Lourinha guessed 2012 Heathcote Vemrentino 3 months on skins.  Very close!

And Liam from Athletes of Wine guessed all three varieties correctly but weighted in the wrong order, moscato giallo, vermentino, fiano.  And although he had the wrong vintage (2013) did have the correct region and winemaking style as well.  Pretty smart palates out there!

Overall people thought the mystery wine was a good drink.  It’s nice to know that the #bucketwine project already has a little gem in the ‘museum’ from the original vintage.

Thanks to everyone who joined in our silly game and got on the bandwagon to #winthebooze.  We had a blast.

Cheers, Kim