Vintage 2021: Beyond the Bushfires

As we launch our first Vintage 2021 wines, we're taking the opportunity to update our many loyal customers on how we've adapted our winemaking processes to ensure we can continue to supply you with the wines you love. 

We also share an update on the outlook for The Islander Estate Vineyards as we continue on our road to recovery from the 2020 bushfires.

Order 2021 Wine Releases Now

Spring Events not to be missed on Kangaroo Island

Spring is shaping up to be events season on Kangaroo Island

Check out this handy guide to all the events coming up for Spring 2021.  Make sure to get your tickets & be a part of our authentically Kangaroo Island community events.

Download the Spring Events Calendar Here

or click straight through to these fantastic events:

Kangaroo Island Wildlife Carnival:  3 October

Humans of Kangaroo Island Festival:  8-10 October

Tunes in the Dunes:  23 October

New Shoots Music Festival: 20 November

Gastonomo Dining:  October/November

See you there!

 

To stay healthy in old age, pour a glass of red & cut a piece of brie

A recent study suggests ‘responsible’ consumption of wine and cheese could help to protect brain function as you age.

The study’s authors, led by a team at Iowa State University in the UK, examined data from more than 1,500 UK adults to explore links between diet and age-related cognitive decline.

"I was pleasantly surprised that our results suggest that responsibly eating cheese and drinking red wine daily are not just good for helping us cope with our current COVID-19 pandemic, but perhaps also dealing with an increasingly complex world that never seems to slow down," says lead researcher Auriel Willette, an assistant professor in Food Science and Human Nutrition. 

The study, the first large-scale analysis of its kind that connects specific foods to later-in-life cognitive acuity – has found that particular foods and drinks, such as wine and cheese, are protective against age-related cognitive problems.

The four of the most significant findings from the study:

1) Cheese, by far, was shown to be the most protective food against age-related cognitive problems, even late into life;

2) The daily consumption of alcohol, particularly red wine, was related to improvements in cognitive function;

3) Weekly consumption of lamb, but not other red meats, was shown to improve long-term cognitive prowess; and

4) Excessive consumption of salt is bad, but only individuals already at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease may need to watch their intake to avoid cognitive problems over time.

In the study, 1787 people aged 46 to 77 completed a Fluid Intelligence Test (FIT) between 2006 and 2010, to get a baseline marker of their ability to “think on the fly”. They then completed two follow-up assessments in 2012-13 and 2015-16. The participants also answered questions about their food and alcohol consumption throughout the testing periods.

Find out more about the study here

Make a start on your health,
order red wine here

The Islander Estate Vineyards Awarded Star Cellar Door, Best Large Cellar Door & Best Tasting Experience

Being recognising in one category of Australian Gourmet Traveller Wine's annual Australia's Best Cellar Door Awards is compliment enough, but we're positively blushing at the recognition in the 20201 awards.  

Kangaroo Island has a great range of Cellar Doors, each offering a different experience, a different approach & a range of cool-climate wines to explore. Everything that helps promote our island wine region is a positive and of course we don't mind when we share in the recognition.

Jump over to GT Wine Magazine to read their fantastic write up on our region & our other great winemakers to visit. Thanks so much for showcasing Kangaroo Island wine. Read Here

Vintage 2021 - Our return to the business of wine

Vintage 2021 is the first page in our new chapter

This time a year ago we were still coming to terms with the impact of January's fires.  Jacques Lurton was here taking steps to protect our precious wine stocks.  Yale Norris focussed on the endless task of fire recovery which would take many more months and included the very difficult move of cutting down a good proportion of our vineyard to aid its regrowth. The path ahead was long & unclear. There have been innumerable challenges to overcome since.

In a huge contrast, earlier this month we returned to the business of making wine with the first pick of Vintage 2021. We did so with the help of an amazing group of customers, friends and supporters who volunteered to help us hand-pick Sauvignon Blanc and Tempranillo from Michael Lane's vineyard at American River.   It was a truly uplifting way to get back to business.

Since then, our General Manager Yale Norris has been working tirelessly to ensure we can offer our customers the complement of our wine ranges from vintage 2021.    

We’ve sourced some amazing fruit from Kangaroo Island growers and a little further away in McLaren Vale where we needed to.

In our cooler maritime climate on Kangaroo Island, many of the red grapes are still ripening, but we have some fantastic Sauv Blanc, Semillon, Rose, Tempranillo and Malbec all fermenting &/or ageing.

This is a vintage unlike any other in the history of The Islander Estate Vineyards and one we will never forget.  But for us is a step that means we have left recovery behind and are rebuilding our business each and every day. 

We look forward to introducing you to our Vintage 2021 wines.   

Kangaroo Island's Best Experiences: Explore the Cygnet River Cellar Door Trail

If you're looking for the best way to spend a day discovering Kangaroo Island's local artisan producers, come & meet our neighbours on the Cygnet River Cellar Door Trail.

We chose to locate The Islander Estate Tasting Room in Cygnet River to join the community of passionate artisan producers & we've never looked back.  So come & meet the neighbours!

The Cygnet River Cellar Door trail is in a convenient, easy-to-reach location, just a few minutes from Kingscote & Kangaroo Island airport, right on the south-coast touring route.  It's a compact trail ideal for a half-day or leisurely full-day discovery.

You'll experience two distinct styles of wine, award-winning spirits, hand-crafted local wool products and delicious food – all handcrafted with a shared philosophy and authentically Kangaroo Island.

The Islander Estate Vineyards

Visit The Islander Estate Vineyard's intimate cellar door & let our team take you on a personalised wine discovery.

Our hosted tasting experiences explore our handcrafted French-style wines by Bordeaux-raised Jacques Lurton. He fell in love with Kangaroo Island over twenty years ago and established his own estate-style vineyard, The Islander Estate Vineyards. After your tasting, select your favourite wine, then build a cheese & charcuterie platter from our produce store to enjoy on the deck or lawn.

We offer a range of premium wine & food experiences.  Book ahead & save.  Or immerse yourself in a private tasting experience.  Explore our range of hosted wine experiences here.

Kangaroo Island Spirits

A visit to the Kangaroo Island Spirits distillery is a must for any spirit lover.  Kangaroo Island Spirits embrace native ingredients & use traditional processes to make spirits in their purest form, which have so much more to them. Their cellar door offers tastings, paddles & seasonal cocktails to enjoy in the botanical Gin Garden.  Their food van serves just the kind of tasty treats you want with cocktails.  Regular cocktail & blending classes are a great immersive experience.  Discover KIS & book your experience:  kispirits.com.au

Springs Road Wines

We were so excited when Spring Road Wines joined us in the Cygnet River neighbourhood.  Kangaroo Island has a diverse range of wine styles, with something for everyone, so add a stop at Springs Road Wines to taste and enjoy the view at their Cygnet River cellar door.  Springs Road Wines is owned by Joch Bosworth and Louise Hemsley-Smith, who own the organic wine label Battle of Bosworth in McLaren Vale. They bought the Springs Road vineyard in 2016, recognising that the property could produce beautiful organically grown wines. Have a tasting, then relax on the deck with a bottle & a delicious platter of artisan cheese & pates. Discover Springs Road Wines now:  springsroad.com.au

Kangaroo Island Wool

The newest resident in the neighbourhood is Kangaroo Island Wool.  Their custom-built facility is dedicated to the production of slow fashion.  They take raw wool from local Kangaroo Island farmers and transform it into a range of stunning, high-quality fashion garments that will last a lifetime.  Their new facility offers educational tours to see the entire process in action and a store stocked with garments produced onsite.  Perfect mementos or gifts. Book your tour: www.kangarooislandwool.com

If you have the time, wander a little further afield:

If you have a little more time, there is so much more to see and do, all within 10 minutes of Cygnet River:

Kangaroo Island Brewery

Kangaroo Island Brewery is the place to stop for hand-built beers in a fantastic ‘brewery door’ on the way to Emu Bay.  Stop in for one of their famous beer paddles to try a range of brews, or pick your favourite to enjoy overlooking the field.  It’s one of our favourite watering holes.  Check them out:  kibeers.com.au

Emu Bay Lavender

Closer to Emu Bay, the Lavender farm is one of our favourites for breakfast or lunch and a great spot to pick up gifts for friends and family back home.  We highly recommend their amazing scones and lavender jelly for afternoon tea - the perfect refuel after a swim.  Explore more:  emubaylavenderfarm.com

Emu Bay Beach  

Kangaroo Island is spoilt for choice when it comes to beaches, but they don’t come much longer, whiter, and more beautiful than Emu Bay Beach. Over summer, locals love this beach for its stunning sands and safe swimming waters. It's a stunning spot to start or finish your explorations.

The Beach Days Van at Emu Bay boat ramp serves cocktails, wine and delicious snacks in season - a truly unique Kangaroo Island experience.  Check their Facebook page or website for opening days & times between October and May: www.beachdayki.com/

Our favourite Spring food and wine pairings

Here on Kangaroo Island, Spring is in full fling and as the days get longer and warmer, we start to think about wines to match the season.  Our team are sharing their favourite Islander Estate wines for Spring and the dishes they love to pair them with.

Tempranillo and Tapas

All About it:

Spain and Portugal are home to Tempranillo, the fourth-most planted variety in the world. It’s a very old variety thought to have been introduced to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) by the Phoenicians over 3,000 years ago – that’s 1100BC!

Tempranillo draws its name from the Spanish word temprano, which means early.  It’s usually one of the earliest ripening red varieties.  By avoiding the hottest ripening period the wine is balanced and lower in sugars and therefore alcohol.

Tempranillo is one of our team’s favourite drops for Spring, when you might want to stick with reds but move to lighter style.  We love it for its medium body, easy drinking style and great food matching potential.

Tasting Notes:

Our Tempranillo is made to honour the traditional lighter Spanish style - light, fresh and supple with easy drinkability the primary focus. Ideal as a summer wine, it tastes like a mouth full of fresh berries with hints of liquorice and tobacco leaf in the background.

We’ll be drinking it with:

As you’d expect with its Spanish origins, Tempranillo is a great picnic wine paired with tapas dishes like cured meats, grilled vegetables, and sheep’s cheese.  It’s also delicious with grilled meats when it’s time to break out the BBQ.  Or try a bottle of Tempranillo with your next Mexican feast.

 

Sangiovese and Napoli Pizza

All about it

Italy’s most planted wine variety and the pride of the Tuscan regional wine Chianti, Sangiovese is a sensitive soul, changing its character to reflect it’s growing conditions, it’s a variety that truly expresses regionality.

Tasting Notes

“In so many ways, The Islander produces wines that are more European than Australian. Note the degree of savouriness in its wines & the use of fruit as a conduit for complexity & not necessarily an end in itself. Sangiovese is such a wine. Fragrant with black cherries, capers, anise, bitter chocolate. It runs smooth across the palate, supple oak playing its part & imparting sweet mocha. Cherry pip, chalky tanning still melding” Halliday Wine Companion 2021

We’ll be drinking it with:

With its Italian origins, Sangiovese is our go-to variety for antipasto platters & pizza nights. Not too heavy, just enough savouriness & tannins to pair with those Italian flavours and it even lends itself to some light chilling as the evenings heat up.  It’s also a perfect pair for vegetarian dishes, especially tomato, red peppers and grilled vegetables.

 

The White Chardonnay and BBQ Chicken

All about it:

The White is our “House Style” wine created by Jacques Lurton to complement our Estate Range of premium wines.   Leave behind all your perceptions of heavily oaked chardonnay, this is a modern Australian style with just a little nutty creaminess but fresh and clean on the finish.

Tasting Notes:

Our 2019 Chardonnay is a classic example of the variety when grown in South Australia: fresh, fruity, and delicious with beautiful notes of nectarine and white peach underscored by refreshing acidity. This is Chardonnay for Pinot Gris drinkers with the fruit doing all the talking in a wine made for simple enjoyment and all occasions. An ideal choice for that midweek “Hump Day” tipple, or the first bottle with friends on a weekend afternoon.

We’ll be drinking it with:

We love it paired with a roast or BBQ chicken, If you’re heading alfresco it will pair beautifully with a charcuterie platter or a soft cheese like a ripe brie and nuts would be hard to beat too.

 

SoFar So Good Sauvignon Blanc and Asian Salads

All about it:

The SoFar SoGood range is all about preservative-free wines produced with minimal processing.  The result is not your average Sav Blanc, our cellar door guests love it for its fresh take on the variety.  A little more texture, fresh citrus & tropical fruits notes and classic crisp acidity on the finish without being overwhelming

A popular wine with those who are looking for a something different to the usual Sav Blanc.

Tasting Notes:

Our no added preservative Sauvignon Blanc is complex, medium bodied and easy drinking.  The nose is intense and typical of the variety with herbaciousness, tropical fruit, citrus and grapefruit. This wine flows in the mouth with fresh, crisp acidity and a long finish. 

We’ll be drinking it with:

A delicious match for fresh herbaceous Asian salads, prawn & oyster dishes, BBQ spring vegetables & soft goats’ cheese.  Classic pairings like oysters, abalone, and fish but we especially love it with spicy Asian dishes with some herbaciousness and spice, think Bao buns or Vietnamese coleslaw.
 

Stock up on our Spring wine selections now

Halliday 2021 Australian Wine Companion

Your guide to the 2021 Australian Wine Companion's
favourite Islander Estate Vineyards Wines

James Halliday is an unmatched authority in Australia on every aspect of the wine industry, a respected wine critic and vigneron with a career that spans almost 50 years.  The annual Halliday Wine Companion is a guide to where to visit, what to taste, buy and cellar for Australian wine lovers.

We're proud to submit our wines each year for tasting and rating, it gives us a great feel for how our wines sit amongst the best in the country. 

In the 2021 Haliday Wine Companion we were excited to receive the highest possible Red 5-star winery rating and a range of new wines rated Gold and Silver from our premium Estate and everyday drinking Varietal ranges.

See the Halliday Wine Companion team's tasting notes and ratings below.

Shop our current release Halliday favourites 

From the Ashes by James Halliday, Wine Companion Magazine

Thanks to James Halliday for his feature on our Kangaroo Island wine journey and our future beyond the 2019/2020 bushfires.

Jacques Lurton's relationship with James Halliday goes back to his first experiences in Australia as a young winemaker learning new world winemaking techniques in the freedom of the Aussie wine industry.

In this month's Wine Companion magazine, James reflects on the journey that led Jacques to select Kangaroo Island as the location for his only Australian wine business, with a vision to showcase the true potential that the region offers.  And how our vision remains just as strong after the devastating fires of 2020.

Click here to read James' feature "From the Ashes"

James Halliday's 3 Wines to Try

Three of James Halliday's favourite Islander Estate Vineyards wines have received scores of 95 points in his Wine Companion magazine feature.  All fantastic cool weather wines to feature in your wine cellar at this time of year.

2018 Wally White "Semillon on Kangaroo Island clearly has a future.  Wally White responds to the terroir with generosity, offering up an intriguing complexity that attacks all the senses.  Eye-catching medium-deep yellow in hue. Aromas of honeysuckle, beeswax and baked pear. Waves of flavour ride the mouth, concentrated, intense with abiding texture and acidity. As a 2yo it comes across as developed, but the acidity ensures a long life. Drink to 2027." Shop 2018 Wally White

2019 Old Rowley "A brilliant purple sheen is an enticing introduction to this smart, young shiraz grenache. Softness is the key here together with a discreet, still-emerging personality. It has a way to go. Pepper, spice, blackberries & red earth aromas. Deliciously ripe palate with dark cherry, black fruits & grenache violets & confection. Tanins are firm. Bottle age is a must. Drink to 2032. Shop current release 2018 Old Rowley

2019 The Sangiovese "In so many ways, The Islander produces wines that are more European than Australian. Note the degree of savouriness in its wines & the use of fruit as a conduit for complexity & not necessarily an end in itself. Sangiovese is such a wine. Fragrant with black cherries, capers, anise, bitter chocolate. It runs smooth across the palate, supple oak playing its part & imparting sweet mocha. Cherry pip, chalky tanning still melding.  Drink to 2030." Shop 2019 Sangiovese

 

Issue 3 of News from the fire ground: Regeneration flourishes

This week marked a milestone
for Kangaroo Island: 
100 days since the January’s Ravine complex
of fires were declared officially safe.

As Kangaroo Island moves towards winter, season breaking rains have arrived bringing new regeneration across our fire ravaged region.

Regeneration across the region

Seasons rains have broken across the region bringing green pasture grasses back into the parched and burned fields.  Areas of native bush devastated by the fires have spurred regeneration, bringing a ground level blanket of green amongst the burnt treetops.

While there are still years of recovery ahead, the Island is collectively taking a deep breath at these signs of recovery.

A video this week by our great mate Craig Wickham of Exceptional Kangaroo Island was filmed in the Parndana Conservation park who borders and blends into The Islander Estate Vineyard’s property.  Craig is an expert and offers a great update on the regeneration in the park.

 

Renewal of our Estate

The rebuild of the Islander Estate property continues and Winter offers no reprieve.  At this time, our Estate begins to come to life with winter rains.  Our fields are beginning to fill with pasture and our neighbours, both also impacted by the fires, have ewes beginning to drop lambs. So, rebuilding our boundary fencing has become the critical priority with over 1,000 fence posts to be individually replaced and rewired.

 

Yale has a reputation for being able to turn his hand to anything and working harder than anyone we know.  And he’s been proving this in spades, taking on the weeks (or months) long task of refencing one day at a time with our farmer neighbours Fox and Colin, regardless of the weather.  Luckily, our brand-new fence post digger is making the task a little easier.

We are liaising with the Glossy Black Recovery Project to begin replanting essential habitat on our property for these endangered birds.  Hopefully several thousand trees will be planted though winter.

 

Preparing the vineyard for winter dormancy 

While the remainder of our property springs to life in Winter, in the vineyard we prepare for winter dormancy.

With the help of amazing volunteers from many organisations, we have placed the vineyard in the best position possible to hand over to Mother Nature during winter.  We have seen reshooting across areas of the vineyard and vines producing tertiary fruit, however we will need to await Spring to gain a real indication of the vineyard recovery.  We wait and watch.

 

 

Wines flowing freely

Our 2019 vintage wines are now all in bottle and ready for release over the coming months.  In addition to new vintages of all our established wine we’re excited to be introducing two brand new white wines and two red wines to our every growing varietal range.

Our Discoverer’s Wine Club members have already had a pre-release sample of some of these wines and we’ll announce release dates via our social media channels.

Explore our wine range
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