I must have been a little bored one day and trawled the library on my iPhone and found these photos that made me think, my, what a rich tapestry of existance we have woven here at Battle of Bosworth and Spring Seed (and Springs Road Kangaroo Island) .

First up is a lino block print of Tigger our resident standard dachshund created by a member of the local school for an art project. The real Tigger can be viewed at cellar door, if you are passing through, as well as Oscar the Labradoodle, described by Joch as the ‘Best Dog in the World’. He will often be found catching up on his zzzzzz’s on the black sofa in cellar door.

I went over to Sydney for our NSW distributors trade day at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel in the Rocks. A surprise visitor was Chuck Hayward ‘wine yoda’, a legendary wine man from San Francisco. He worked for years at The Jug Shop in SF and has been a regular visitor to Australia for at least 3 decades. I first met him when I worked for d’Arenberg last century. Known and feared for his devastating ‘chuckaritas’.

Bringing it back down to earth; the boys having a Friday night drink around the old camp fire. There was a cameo apprearance by Ian Adam (on the left) who used to work at BoB – in the winery, in the vineyards and he was a gun in cellar door.

Ian’s nickname is Slippery. Something about a sharp corner at speed with 4 tonnes of Petit Verdot on a trailer, then not on the trailer, on the floor….Ian has his own wine brand, Dabblebrook Wines, which are well worth hunting down.

Oh Halliday!

We had some great reviews for our Battle of Bosworth wines from the 2024 Halliday Wine Companion. You can see (below) that the Puritan 2022 received 91 points  from wine reviewer Ned Goodwine MW (Halliday has a small army of wine tasters to help him taste the huge amount of wine each year).

‘This is well done. Contemporary swagger ….pulpy..fleshy with blue fruits and licorice, floral and contagious of energy. Drink with a brisk chill.’

I like the word ‘swagger’ – it does make us sound like pirates though – I can’t say in all honesty that Joch is swashbuckling, or evil or brutish, but he was definately daring when he made the inaugural Puritan back in 2010. Joch was the first winemaker to make an unoaked, preservative free Shiraz and in doing so, started a mini trend. I maintain that ours was certainly the first and is still the best.

Shiver my timbers, etc.

Halliday and Springs Road Kangaroo Island

We had some wonderful reviews for the Springs Road Kangaroo Island wines that we submitted to The Halliday Wine Companion. Most exciting was that the 2021 Springs Road ‘Terre Napoléon’ Shiraz got 96 points and a wonderful revew. More about this over on the Springs Road blog…

Whatever next?

There is wild talk in our office of a long table lunch on the driveway at Battle of Bosworth Wines for wine club members and those on our the mailing list, which sounds amazing. More details will be forthcoming as the plans evolve. You would be well advised to sign up to the mailing list so that you can be kept up to date on our plots and plans.

Until next time, cheers, Louise