Petaluma White Label Wine Tasting with Lunch at Mr Wong

Petaluma, which has long been renowned for premium wines from South Australia, have released a new range of wines aimed at affordable drinking. Named Petaluma White after the colour of the new label, the Petaluma White Label Range includes Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Created with the objective of making the wines more accessible to a younger market and casual occasions, the label also has been designed to standout on the shelf.

Petaluma White Range

“The wines are the expressions of the regions,” Andrew Hardy, Senior Winemaker at Petaluma explains over a lunch and tasting at Mr Wong restaurant in Sydney. The wines are accessible in price and designed to be drunk now though the Cabernet Sauvignon can be cellared for up to 10 years.

The fruit for the Petaluma White Label Sauvignon Blanc 2012 is sourced from the Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra, picked during March then destemmed and crushed at the winery in the Piccadilly Valley. Most of the juice is fermented in stainless steel tanks, with a small portion barrel fermented in one-use French oak barriques. The Sauvignon Blanc is a more delicate style than a New Zealand counterpart. The wine is more textural with fruit intensity, faint herbal notes and a crisp mineral dryness which make it more food friendly.

For the Petaluma White Label Pinot Gris 2012, the fruit comes from four small vineyards, two in the Piccadilly Valley, one near Balhannah and one near Lenswood. The wine has a lovely acidity and a depth of flavour on the palate with crunchy pear and spice. Ready to drink now, the flavours will also enhance over the next few years.

The grapes for the Petaluma White Label Chardonnay 2011 are sourced from two vineyards at Lenswood and Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills. The wine is fermented in a combination of one and two years old French oak barriques and stainless steel tanks. The wines fermented in oak were then lees strained once per week, and these components underwent partial malo-lactic fermentation.

The wine has the classic citrus character, good acid, mineral fruit, with hints of peach combined with subtle oak. This is an easy drinking chardonnay that goes down very well on its own and as an accompaniment to food.

Petaluma White Label Cabernet Sauvignon

The Petaluma White Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 comes from the Coonawarra Terra Rossa, the premier region for Cabernet Sauvignon in the south-east of South Australia. The fruit is fermented on skins for ten days then aged in French oak barriques for almost two years. This is a classic dry red, full flavoured with aromas of black currants and cassis, displaying elegance and finesse. The wine will soften and improve with time but good to drink now.

The wines were tasted over a lunch at Mr Wong with a delicious Cantonese-style menu of cold entrees, a Dim Sum menu, Peking Duck pancakes and ending with a delicious steamed lobster with white soy, ginger and shallots.

Mr Wong menu

Top row (L-R): BBQ Pork Buns; Scallop and prawn shumai; Jade seafood dumpling
Middle Row (L-R): Vegetarian salad of cucumber, fennel, celery, woodear mushrooms and rice jelly sheets; Yellowfin tuna, kohlrabi, sweet wasabi, soy and ginger dressing; xiao long bao
Third Row (L-R): Sea scallops, lap cheung, woodear mushrooms and lemon; Asparagus and scallop dumpling with XO Sauce; Peking duck pancakes
Bottom: Rock Lobster steamed with white soy, ginger and shallots

The Petaluma White Range is available from January 2013 with a RRP of $22.95 for the whites and $26.99 for the red.