Distinctly Perceived is a blend of two ferments of our Gold aged individually on Chardonnay pomace from Canobolas-Smith Winery in Orange, NSW and Viognier pomace from Ravensworth Wines in Murrumbateman, NSW. We normally work with whole fruit for our beers made with wine grapes… ie for all the St beers. For this beer, however, I wanted to use a by-product of the winemaking process and get a little more length from the fruit. This is similar to the ideas that surround Subtle Matter and Zibeerbo, however these skins were never in contact with fermenting wine, instead direct press fruit. We collected the Chardonnay skins from Murray Smith in early March 2019 alongside the whole bunches which were used to make Touched by the Side of the Sun. The grapes were picked in the morning and pressed with the juice going straight to barrel for the fermentation of the 2019 Chardonnay we have on tap at our cellar door. We removed the skins from the press and placed them into a sanitised stainless steel vessel and covered them in carbon dioxide before sealing the container and bringing them back to Sydney where we racked a small amount of young Gold onto the skins for a 6 month maceration and fermentation. The Viogner skins were pressed at a similar time in Murrumbateman and similarly placed directly from the press into a sanitised, carbon dioxide flushed vessel before being sealed and transported to Sydney. As with the Chard skins, we racked young beer onto the skins for a long sleep.