Terre à Terre, a French expression meaning Down to Earth, is a small Australian wine domaine run by husband and wife team Xavier Bizot and Lucy Croser. The close-spaced 7-hectare Terre à Terre vineyard is located next to Tapanappa’s Whalebone Vineyard, at the top of a North-South limestone ridge in Wrattonbully, one of Australia’s most exciting regions. The climate is similar to Saint Emilion in France. The Terre à Terre vineyard was first planted in 2004 with 2 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc and 3 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon. In 2008, 1 hectare each of Cabernet Franc and Shiraz were also planted.
This fruits and berries moment gets all the royal treatment with its sweet, custardy dressing and snow-like frosting, both adding richness while conversely highlighting the berries' natural acids and zing. There's so much colour and flavour that a sweet wine here can sit quietly in the background as long as its own sugars are neatly in place. This Wrattonbully pinot gris is half clean, ripe bunches, 30 percent shrivelled grapes, and 20 percent botrytised bunches, delivering a light, fresh, almost spiced, salted caramel-like edge. If full-on botrytis influence is too much for you, this could well tickle your fancy.