Ochota Barrels, 'The Green Room' Grenache, McLaren Vale, Australia 2021

"We just want to produce something delicious and gorgeous for all of us to enjoy with none of the nasties and more of the love". 

The Ochota story started back in 2000. Taras and Amber Ochota had been travelling the best wine and surf spots around the world and decided to settle back home in South Australia and make wine themselves, initially concentrating on Grenache in McLaren Vale and Syrah in Barossa. Strongly influenced by small scale biodynamic producers they met in the South of France, wines are made using organic methods in the vineyards and a hands-off, minimum-intervention approach to winemaking: picking early to maintain natural acidity, ferments using indigenous yeasts, whole-bunch pressing the whites, whole-bunch fermentation and longer maceration for the reds. Texture is an important focus, mouth-feel is created via time on skins and batonnage. 

The Green Room is produced in tiny quantity. A Grenache that is light in colour but dense in flavour and concentration. Opulent yet nervy with a savory, almost Pinot-like character. Definitely not a big bruiser, one to drink with delicately flavoured food - young lamb, duck, a great salad. 

Tragically, Taras died suddenly in 2020 but Ochota Barrels is carried on by Amber and the Ochota team.