We are very excited to announce that Wildflower St Walter 2020: Black Muscat will be available online and for take-away/collection from 12pm (Sydney time) on Friday 4 December 2020.
St Walter is an Australian Wild Ale refermented with red wine grapes. It is named for Topher and his wife's first son and the Saint Walter was an 11th century monk from the Loire Valley in France and is the patron saint of vintners.
This is a new name for a second year cuvee for us. When my son Walter was born I had to make a decision between making beer with a new fruit or splitting up the wine grapes to spread out Florence's growing reign over the fruit beers... I think she had four variants last year which was just a little unfair. Well, the latter was the choice and as such I have kept the white wine grapes with Flo (the inaugural 2017 release was with Sauvignon Blanc) and Walter will be namesake for the red wine grapes.
St Walter was made in a method we have come to adopt for wine grape beer refermentations. The fruit for this beer comes from an old plot of table grapes at Thornbrook Orchard in Nashdale, NSW. After being hand picked on 25 March, we put the fruit into a three week carbonic maceration before racking two barrels (1904 & 1736) of aged Gold onto the semi-fermenting fruit on 16 April 2020. The beer and grapes macerated and refermented together for just under three months. The grapey beer was then transferred off the fruit and washed with barrels 1863, 1601, 1712, 1605 and 1814 of aged Gold before bottling on 29 July 2020 and allowed to condition in bottle for 18 weeks before release.
At release, we see big aromatics of rosewater, turkish delight and sweet lolly. The palate is fresh but without the cloying flavours you would assume from these aromatics. Light grippiness with a fresh concord grape, vitis labrusca finish. Lots of energy and fruit in what is a very enjoyable beer to drink.
St Walter 2020: Black Muscat is packaged in 375ml bottles. There are 500 bottles available online and 450 at our cellar door. It will also be offered to our lovely wholesale stockists across Australia. There are also 18 x 1.5 litre magnums available online. Please note, there is a 12 bottle limit per person for 375ml bottles and 1 bottle limit per person for magnums.
Like all our beers, St Walter 2020: Black Muscat is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
Enjoy.
