For some years now, I’ve been exploring making some wines in a very LoFi way. Wines made in a pre-industrial manner with no pumps, de-stemmers or computer-controlled presses. Instead, they are made with whole bunches, foot treading, hand bucketing, basket pressing and relying on gravity to move the wine.

The word Lagar comes from the Portuguese method of gently extracting all the flavour and colour from the grapes prior to fermentation by extensive foot treading (in Portuguese wineries, they traditionally danced on the grapes). The treading releases all the colour and flavour without extracting any bitterness and excessive tannins.

This wine is monumental - Dark and brooding. An exotic mix of spice, juicy red berries and dried herbs and fills your mouth with rich, dark Pinot flavours that go on for a very long time. It’s not the regular Balnarring, but you can see it’s related. It’s only available in Magnum and they are very scarce.