Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important
than any established style or system.
Bruce Lee, 1968
At the very first lecture attended by the winemaker on commencing the oenology course at Roseworthy College in 1982, the late Dr. Bryce Rankine emphasised that when judging a wine all that mattered was the wine in the glass. A particular wine will be perceived differently by every individual because of their genetic make-up, age, conditioning, and varying physical sensitivity to different compounds in wine.
The late Dr. Bryce Rankine delivering a lecture in 1982, with Matthew Aldridge listening intently.
The Black Stump House Method
A short maturation in a new barrel has it's limitations, since the earliest extracted oak tannins do not have enough time to soften along with the ingress of oxygen into the barrel. On the other hand a longer maturation might lead to the wine losing freshness and vibrancy, or maybe becoming over-oaked and unbalanced.
This method extends the barrel aging process by drawing from the solero system in Spanish sherry making where older barrels are continuously infused with younger and fresher wine from a previous vintage. Eventually this might result in a non-vintage wine, but then, this is normal in the region of Champagne.
Not all Black Stump wines are made using this solero-type method, but anything given a number is made by this long barrel aging method, with Wine #9 being the most recent one bottled in 2009.