Wildflower Brewing & Blending - Touched By the Side of the Sun

Touched by the Side of the Sun is an Australian Wild Ale made by fermenting golden wort with and by whole Chardonnay bunches from Canobolas Smith Winery in Orange NSW. To make this beer, we shoved a whole lotta freshly picked wine grapes into a barrel in Mar ’19, topped the barrel with wort and let it ride for 6 months all together until bottling in Sept ’19. We didn’t add any of our house culture or any foreign yeast other than what was residing on the skins of the grapes at harvest. Like Subtle Matter, the name makes reference to René Descartes’ philosophies on optics and colour inferring that since there are no voids in nature and all space is filled by some invisible ‘subtle matter’ when a ray of daylight collides with you, it is as if you have been ‘touched by the side of the sun’… a slightly comforting if not worrying thought. I watercolored the artwork for the label with Murray’s blessing. This moon, sun and star feature heavily in his own winery’s imagery and most specifically his classic red blend ‘Alchemy’. The grapes we made this beer with however are usually reserved for his ‘Shine’ label… a major reason I chose a Sun reference for this beer.