Golden Child is the project of young yet experienced winemaker James Hamilton. Using grapes grown by his father David from his own vineyard in Kuitpo in the southern Adelaide Hills, James uses his wealth of winemaking experience to bring the wines to bottle.
Having their own 20+-year-old vineyard gives the Hamiltons enormous flexibility with the wines and allows James to craft some pretty unique offerings. The fruit is all hand-picked, fermented with natural yeasts and crafted together gently and with minimum additions. The range is wide, colourful and wholly enjoyable.
Winery notes (2020 Vintage)
"Made from Biodynamically grown Chardonnay from our neighbour Brackenwood Vineyard. This wine was made using red winemaking techniques, an ancient practice known as ‘skin contact’. The resulting wine has loads of texture with exotic ginger, orange zest and intense stone fruit flavours. This wine is vegan friendly and was bottled with minimal additives.
Hand-picked on a cool morning and destemmed into open fermenters for wild yeast fermentation. Ferments were plunged once per day then basket pressed to used Hogs Heads barrels after 35 days on skins. The wine was matured for six months in barrel before bottling without fining or filtration."
differnetdrop.com (2020 Vintage)
"James Hamilton just gets the kind of wines that the younger wine-loving Australian public want on their tables and in their tumblers. Orange wines – white grapes made with time on skins – are very in vogue at the moment. Though some can be challenging or even confronting, it's wines like this that make the perfect gateway into the style. This is Adelaide Hills Chardonnay that spent just over a month on skins. Not too long, but just long enough to give a little powdery grip to the fruit in the mouth. It's a lighter, juicy expression of baby orange wine – and lots of fun to drink!"