Castle Rock Estate has extended its reserve range of wines with the release of their 2021 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Pinot Noir($46), 2021 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Riesling ($36) and 2020 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Chardonnay ($36).
The new Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Pinot Noir is a wine that showcases balanced integration of winemaking techniques with our premium, estate grown fruit. “This extremely limited wine is an alternative approach to our house style of Pinot Noir,” says winemaker Rob Diletti. “It comprises 100 percent handpicked and whole bunch fermented grapes, creating lifted aromatics and a fine tannin structure. Nine months of maturation in old French barriques results in a highly aromatic wine with silky texture and amazing structure and length.”
The new Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Chardonnay is cool climate, complex Chardonnay, which has been barrel fermented in French oak, 20 percent of which was new. “Our Diletti wines are made to exhibit texture and complexity. This Chardonnay was enhanced by natural ferment, with some juice solids during fermentation and leaving the wine on yeast lees in barrel for 10 months.”
The 2021 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Riesling is a new addition to the winery’s Riesling stable. “It’s an exciting extension to our Rieslings. This wine is about texture and complexity built around the tight Riesling structure yet still displaying its Riesling DNA; free-run juice filled to puncheon and barriques prior to ferment with a different amount of juice solids (cloudy juice) in each barrel. We then matured the wine on lees in Barrels for nine months prior to bottling.”
The ‘Diletti’ wines are all sourced from estate grown grapes from the 55-hectare property that was initially planted in 1983. Porongurup is the smallest of the five sub-regions making up Australia’s largest wine growing region, the Great Southern. The subregion is 40 km north of Albany and encompasses the entire 12km long Porongurup Range, featuring luxuriant Karri forests and views of the Stirling Range to the north.
“The easterly aspect of our vineyards, in my opinion, has turned out to be what makes our site so unique. We get the early morning sun and not the hot afternoon sun, the prevailing wind in Summer is an easterly. In most of WA it is hot, but for us it comes off the bight, so is a cooling sea breeze, and although we are only 300m above sea level, the surrounding land is low and flat, so I believe that the way the easterly is uplifted as it hits the Porongurups is important too.”
Pricing and distribution:
The Castle Rock Estate wines are distributed in NSW by IS Wine, in Victoria by Wholesale Wine Services and in WA by Fine Wine Wholesalers. The wines are also available at www.castlerockestate.com.au
- 2021 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Pinot Noir $46
- High res bottle shot
- 2021 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Riesling $36
- High res bottle shot
- 2020 Castle Rock Estate ‘Diletti’ Chardonnay $36
- High res bottle shot
For further information and images please contact:
David Cumming at Define Wine Marketing & Communications on 0414 736 342 or david@definewine.com.au
Rob Diletti, Winemaker at Castle Rock on 0447 531 035 or rob@castlerockestate.com.au
Castle Rock Estate is nestled on the eastern slopes of the Porongurup Mountain and is named after a prominent nearby granite landmark. The vineyard, which sits in Great Southern’s sub region Porongurup, has a cool and elevated northerly aspect, resulting in intensely flavoured wines, particularly Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The vineyard was established in 1983 by Angelo and Wendy Diletti and is now run by their son Rob. Their 200-tonne winery was constructed in 2000 and in 2015 Rob Diletti was named Wine Companion Winemaker of the Year. Rob was a finalist in the 2019 Gourmet Traveller Wine Magazine Winemaker of the Year awards and a finalist in the 2022 Wine Companion ‘Best Value Winery’ Awards.