Ruggabellus Archaeus Red 2021 Ruggabellus Wines

RUGGABELLUS – ‘rugged beauty’ – pertaining to the ancient & enchanting nature of our land.

I have no recollection of life before this place. I moved here when I was two. I was about to experience the bouquet of my first wine cellar. It was Penfolds and it was the vintage of 1975. My father contributed to many vintages here and it was my good fortune to have the culture of this place woven into my childhood. Indeed since then my life has been filled with privileged experience working with and observing some great winemakers each with their own unique way of crafting wine. ‘Respect and history’ was learned at Penfolds, ‘craft and tradition’ at Rockford, ‘intellect and detail’ from Chris Ringland, ‘perfume and texture’ from Charlie Melton, ‘layers and length’ from my father Rob Gibson and most importantly ‘belief’ from Pete and Magali at Spinifex ‚– without their encouragement Ruggabellus would in all likelihood have remained just an idea to this day.

Emma and I love drinking wine with food. We love wines with grace and intrigue. We live in the Barossa valley in southern Australia. This is our home. We have taken great pleasure in exploring its strengths ‚– an ancient landscape with a great resource of young and very old vines. We remain constantly aware of the most significant local challenge ‚– an abundance of sunshine.

For a few years now we have been dabbling with small parcels of Grenache, Mataro, Syrah and Cinsault and more recently old vine Riesling, Semillon and Muscat (the first of these to be released in late 2014).

Our wines range from 10% to 100% whole bunch and all wine movements are done using gravity. We nearly always harvest on ‘fruit’ days. All ferments are unseeded and allowed to progress naturally. All wines are bottled under screw cap. We sincerely hope they become a valuable contribution to the evolving nature of Australian wine.

TIMAEUS (honour) ‚– inspired by Grenache

EFFERUS (untamed) ‚– inspired by Mataro

ARCHAEUS (soul of a place) ‚– inspired by Syrah

QUOMODO (in which way) ‚– inspired by Riesling

SOLUMODO (barely) ‚– inspired by Semillon

Ultimately we would love for these to become collectable propositions and so they must stand up after a few years in the cellar, a motivating consideration during blending!

FLUUS (flow) ‚– lighter weight, a great introduction to the style of red wine we make

SALLIO (season) ‚– a light introduction to the textured style of white wine we make.

We have purchased small parcels of fruit from carefully selected vineyards. They range from 220m to 510m elevation and crucially cover a diversity of soil types. We are now the proud custodians of a beautiful old-vine vineyard at 480-510m elevation containing an interesting mix of Riesling, Semillon, Muscat and Syrah. We anticipate it will provide us valuable parcels of fruit for many years to come. We also continue to establish a small vine garden containing Mataro, Grenache, Shiraz and Cinsault in the Penrice/Moculta area of the Barossa. We hope it will ultimately give us a pretty good crack at a single vineyard wine in the years to come!

Thank you for your interest in our wines. We sincerely hope you enjoy them.

Abel, Emma, Bailin and Rouille.