Waterford Heatherleigh

It is exclusively produced from grapes that have turned into raisins on the vine. This is done by pinching the stem of the grape bunches, preventing sap flow, which naturally concentrates it. The wine has a wonderful infusion of depth, aged ripeness and vibrant youthfulness.

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The Wine

Waterford Heatherleigh shows perfumed apricots and muscat characters following a back blending of barrels or Solera system. The wine has a wonderful infusion of depth, aged richness, and vibrant youthfulness. The wine is carefully blended and selected to achieve low alcohol and low residual sugar content. Best served chilled.

The blend consists of 55% Muscat grape, with the rest being a blend of Chenin blanc Chardonnay and Viognier.

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Winemaking

The Solera system is a method used in making sweet wines that involves blending younger wines with older ones to create a final product with consistent flavour and quality. 

The solera system works by having a series of barrels staked on top of each other, the youngest wines are placed in the top barrel and the oldest in the bottom barrels. When it comes time to bottle the wine, a portion of the the wine from the bottom barrels are removed for bottling and the barrels are then refilled with the wine from the barrels above it, this process is repeated for each barrel in the stack until all the lower barrels are filled and the top most barrel is refilled with new wine.

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Wine Fact

We do not use the influence of botrytis in making our dessert wine, therefore it is a natural sweet and not a noble late harvest or noble rot.

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Awards

Platter’s Wine Guide 2023 – 4 Stars