Chambers Rosewood, Old Vine Rutherglen Muscat

Stephen Chambers is the sixth generation of his family to make wine at the Rosewood winery. This venerable winery, founded in 1858 by William Chambers, is one of the most fabled in Rutherglen. A charming, northeastern Victorian town, Rutherglen still speaks of the gold rush, which led to the development of its wine industry in the 1850s.

Chambers Rosewood makes distinctive yet classical wines from their 50 hectares of vineyards. The Rutherglen Muscats are made from the darker-skinned Muscat à Petits Grains Rouge variety (a mutation of Muscat à Petits Grains Blanc) and winemaking has been subtly changed in recent years to make fresher, cleaner wines. Each vineyard plot is fermented separately in closed, stainless-steel tanks to preserve the grapes’ aromatics. Fermentation is stopped when the must reaches between 14.5 and 15.5 Baumé (potential alcohol), by adding neutral grape spirit. Upon settling, the wine is racked and aged into old oak casks (from 10 to 100-years-old, and 225 litres up to 5,000 litres in size) until required for blending. The Rutherglen Muscat spends an average of four years ageing in cask. In exceptional vintages, grapes from Chambers Rosewood’s low-yielding centenarian vines are used for the ‘Old Vine Muscat’, which is aged in a separate solera.

The wines are rich and unctuous on the palate yet zesty and balanced on the finish, marrying dried fruit characters with floral nuances. These are superb wines to sip on their own, with cheese or a wide variety of desserts. They are a reminder that Rutherglen produces some of the most outstanding sweet wines in the world.