Description
About Kay Brothers
Frederick and Herbert Kay took on the Amery vineyard over 125 years ago, but the virtues of this unique piece of land began long before those early days. McLaren Vale is known for its complex geology, and the Amery vineyard is no exception, with ancient soils comprising five different geological types, ranging from 10,000 to 550 million years old.
This complex soil structure means the vines struggle to thrive and survive. This struggle drives the development of powerful, concentrated flavours and fine, textured tannins, the hallmarks of Kay Brothers wines.
Our focus in the vineyard is sustainability, our team is always working to improve the bio-diversity and soil health across the property. This allows us to run the vineyard more organically, whilst making the vines more resilient to disease and drought conditions. We know that a healthy vineyard produces better fruit, which makes better wine.
The Block 6 vineyard, at 125 years of age, presents its own unique challenges as a vineyard, but one that more than makes up for the effort. It is more fragile, it requires more care, but it also more resilient, with deep root systems, and the ability to produce fruit with impressive density of flavour and unmatched complexity.
The aim in the winery is to do whatever we can to preserve the amazing flavours and characters nature provides in the vineyard.
To achieve this, we strive to be as gentle as possible from harvest all the way through the original open fermenters, hand plunging and heritage 1928 basket press.
Small batches are handled individually, maximising the unique characters that stem from each vine. Wines are then transferred to large oak formats to optimise oak integration, creating balanced oak influence.
These barrels are then stored in the cool, stone walled cellars, in a stable climate, allowing the wines to mature gracefully.
The resulting wines exhibit the balance we so carefully work towards, approachable wines with great aging ability, soft tannins, fruit quality and intensity of flavour.
Our methods may be old fashioned, but at Kay Brothers we are proud to make McLaren Vale wines that truly express their terroir.
