The Purple Hands team – winemaker Craig Stansborough and mate, business partner and anointed ‘sales guy’ Mark Slade – share a love of Barossa, a hands-on approach to making wine, and an unwavering commitment to authenticity and the fight against the waves of what Mark calls “so much made up crap” that floats around the world of wine these days.
Fruit is sourced almost entirely from the Southern regions of the Barossa Valley around Lyndoch and Williamstown, where the climate is cooler and the rainfall higher than the central Valley.
The wines are soft and supple, and perhaps a little more restrained than some of the richer styles made from the warmer sub-regions. Classic Italian varieties such as Aglianico and Montepulciano feature prominently, inspired by Craig and Mark’s love of Italian wine and interest in the future possibilities of grape varieties so obviously suited to a warm and dry climate like Barossa.