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Atze's Corner - Barossa Valley - Australia

Atze's Corner, Wines from Barossa Vallery Australia Looking For US Importers

Small Batch Wines Of The Barossa Valley.

Atze’s Corner vigneron Andy Kalleske is the sixth successive generation of his family to be involved in grapegrowing and winemaking in the Australia’s iconic Barossa Valley. With that experience comes the knowledge of where the best grapes grow and how to nurture the fragile old vines to give of their best.

The cornerstone of this artisan winery lies in several amazing vineyards which are tended by Andy’s parents Barb and John Kalleske. Shiraz vines planted in 1912 and 1951 adjacent to the winery, a stone’s throw east of Nuriootpa on the Barossa’s valley floor and close by at Ebenezer, a sub-region of the Barossa renowned for its Shiraz wines.

Hand-selected grapes from these and other family-owned vines are the key to Atze’s Corner wines.

Minimal intervention is Andy’s catchcry in the winery: to extract colour, flavour and tannins as gently as is possible small-batch, open fermenters are used along with hand-plunging. Wines are matured in oak barrel before bottling and further cellaring prior to release. Minimal filtering and fining are the trademarks of this unobtrusive approach.

The result of this hands-off approach is a range of premium reds that showcases the best of the Kalleske family’s vineyards – from the elegant and vibrant The Renegade to the complex and Eddies Old Vine Shiraz.

The Winemaking: Selecting the best of the best from the best

Our winemaking isn’t quite the riddle that might sound. Simply put, we hand pick the best blocks of our vineyards. Handpicking gives us complete control of the raw material with which we start our winemaking journey. At the winery the grapes are fermented and matured but even then they’re not Atze’s Corner wines. Only when we’ve tasted every barrel and ruled out those that don’t quite make the grade, is the wine Atze’s Corner.

Our unrivalled combination of amazing terroir, old vineyards, six generations of Barossan viticultural expertise and passionate wine making bring you the best that Barossa wine has to offer. We hope that the first four generations of Barossa Kalleskes will be produ of what we’re making of their vineyards and we trust that Generation Seven will enjoy the bottles that we leave them in the cellar.

So how do we make the wine?

It’s simple really; we take the best grapes we can grow; grapes with concentrated flavours from old vines which produce only a small crop. Using traditional techniques of fermenting in open-topped tanks and hand plunging the skins into the fermenting juice extracts all the flavour, colour and tannin giving us silky-rich, fruit laden wines. We then mature the new wine in oak barrels, barrels that we’ve selected to suit our wines’ rich flavours.

After a year or so in barrel we bottle the wine; often it will be without further treatment but sometimes we choose to smooth the wine’s edges with egg-white before the wine is bottled. The lightest of filtrations (technically known as a “sticks and stones” filter) sees the wine safely into bottle. We like to cellar our reds for a while before we sell them; this post bottled rest ensures that you get a great bottle.

Our Products

2012 John and Barb’s Old Vine Grenache

A knock out wine from an old gnarly vineyard.

2009 Eddies Old Vine Shiraz

Rare as Hens Teeth!

There aren’t many winemakers in the world who get to work with grapes from vines this old; Andy Kalleske is one of their lucky number. Ninety seven year old vines and 68 year old vines from treasured family owned vineyards produced this exceptional vintage. Planted by Eddie Staehr and Eddie Leibich these vines have seen, and survived, it all. Originally they’d have made fortified wines, the ports which made the Barossa’s reputation, they survived the over-supply and the wine-pull scheme of the 1980s and have come through it all to see the Barossa appreciated around the world as the southern hemisphere’s home of Shiraz.

2012 The Bachelor Shiraz- Limited

Remember 1977?

It was an eventful year; the population of Australia topped 14 million, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her Silver Jubilee, Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, Mrs Evans gave birth to a son: Cadel, Mrs Haddin gave birth to Brad and red wine sales were doing quite nicely thank you very much. With this as the background Barb and John Kalleske planted their recently acquired land at Koonunga with Shiraz vines. The block was christened “The Bachelor Block” in honour of Bert “The Bachelor” Kleing from whom the block was purchased.

2013 Vermentino

Vermentino: Our first ever white wine.

We jokingly refer to this as our Chainsaw Massacre wine.

Why?

Well, a few years ago Andy chainsawed the tops off some Chardonnay which no one wanted to buy, and grafted onto the trunks this Italian variety; Vermentino. Why Vermentino? “I have to confess I really like Vermentino” said Andy, “so I made the personal decision to plant some. It’s a really refreshing wine and it pairs well with a lot of different foods. It’s been a triumph in the vineyard too, Vermentino thrives in the Barossa, it doesn’t use as much water as other varieties and it loves our summer heat.”

2012 The Renegade

New Release

The Renegade combines three Spanish varieties of Grenache, Mataro, and Graciano, and the 2012 vintage delivered excellent conditions for these late ripening varieties. This is a fruit-driven number and a true expression of the Spanish varieties that thrive in the Barossa’s warm climate. In 2009 we were looking for a vibrant fruit driven wine, after hours of tasting at the blending table we stumbled onto a mix that brought together brightness of Grenache, the power of Mataro and the X-factor of Graciano, a unique blend which stood out from the rest. The 2012 vintage was truly special, and offered some amazing growing and ripening conditions for the fruit. Graciano is a very new variety to the Barossa Valley with less then a handful of small plantings within the valley. Making this a very unique and exciting blend which will get the conversation to it’s brightness and flare.

2009 Lorna’s Cab Sauvignon

Warm days and cool nights in the Northern Barossa of 2009 made ripening conditions ideal for the late ripening Cabernet Sauvignon.

From Ebenezer in the BarossaValley’s north, on our property previously ownedby Lorna Roehr. This site was chosen specifically for its sandy clay loam top soil over a limestone and clay base, making the vines work hard for water and giving the fruit richness and depth.