All wines made at Star Lane Winery are made by hand utilising traditional French winemaking techniques.
Liz Barnes is the winemaker and her husband Brett is the Vigneron. They work well together to form a great team.
Only the finest fruit can make the finest wine. At harvest all grapes are picked in the cool of the morning and great care is taken to make sure that only the very best fruit used for wine production.
Star Lane employ only Wild Yeast Fermentation techniques allowing the fruit to utilise the natural yeast that is present on the skin of the berries. No additional yeast is added.
The wine takes usually a week or more to go through its primary fermentation process in open top fermenters. It is left on skins for two to three weeks after primary ferment to facilitate cold maceration. The ferments are hand plunged and pumped over both day and night at carefully managed time intervals and closely monitored to ensure precise temperature control. The fruit is then gently basket pressed to extract the final juice from the berries and skins.
After this, the wine is put into tank to settle overnight and then it is put into barrel or Terracotta Amphora to undergo its secondary fermentation process which includes natural malolactic fermentation. Importantly, this process is not hurried and is allowed to take place innately via a long and slow motion through winter, into spring, and then completed by early summer before the heat begins.