Otto Wine Project

NOSTRANO

It is with great pleasure that we present the inaugural release from the Otto Wine Project.

These two wines are the first fruits of our endeavour to offer our customers fine wines made by us to be enjoyed exclusively alongside our fine cuisine. No corners have been cut. This is the real deal. Beautiful, high quality, small batch wines that have been lovingly hand crafted and elegantly packaged to enhance the Otto experience. The clue is there in the wine’s title Nostrano, Our Own.

Originally conceived of as a Sommelier’s wine, it grew out of a desire to deepen my understanding of the winemaking process and to put my money where my mouth is. Our partner in this project is Willow Bridge Winery in Geographe, Western Australia. Willow Bridge’s winemaker is Simon Burnell, my oldest school friend and an accomplished winemaker in his own right. This would not have been possible without his hard work and sage advice, along with the generosity of Willow Bridge in providing the facilities to get the job done. Together, Simon and I worked from first crushing the fruit through to the final bottling and labeling to provide a pair of unique and delicious wines for your enjoyment. The proof is in the bottle.

2011 Otto Nostrano  Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc                             gls  12      btl  60

This is our take on the archetypal Classic Dry White. It is an 80/20 blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc made solely from fruit sourced from Willow Bridge’s estate holdings. The Semillon juice was left nice and cloudy, then fermented in old oak barriques using two different cultured yeast strains and left on its gross lees for six months with weekly battonage to build texture and complexity. The pungent Sauvignon Blanc component was tank fermented and kept squeaky clean before being blended with the Semillon to create a wine that is at once fresh, youthful and mouth-watering, yet satisfyingly sustained and complex, with the potential for further bottle development.

2011 Otto Nostrano Sangiovese/Shiraz                                        gls 12       btl   60

A juicy, medium bodied red with an Italian accent. With no Sangiovese plantings at Willow Bridge, Simon and I looked around and found a high quality grower in Donnybrook, Geographe who was prepared to sell us some of his beautiful fruit for our folly. It also is an 80/20 blend, with the 20% Shiraz portion coming from Willow Bridge’s vineyards.

The Sangiovese was destemmed and underwent alcoholic fermentation in tank before being racked to old barriques for malolactic fermentation then later blended in tank with the un-oaked Shiraz. We ended up with a vibrant and eminently quaffable wine redolent of red cherries and dried herbs. The sinewy tannins of the Sangiovese are beautifully augmented by the fleshiness of the Shiraz and the clean acidity that draws the palate out.

A crackerjack Italianate luncheon red.

Cheers!

Patrick White

Sommelier