Nose
The nose has calmed from the exuberance of youth and is now a combination of rich red fruit (cherry, mulberry, plum) with a savoury note of Italian herbs and French oak spice – it smells fat and juicy but you sense the Italian sensibility holding it together.
Palate
To drink it is a mouthful of flavour, rich and round in the mid palate but gives into a solid dry length. Tannins are very un-Blue Poles with big blocks of them to the fore, but they mesh in with the fruit such that you would say they are a required element of the wine.
Growing Conditions
2009 was a difficult Margaret River red wine vintage for us with initially quite dry spring conditions, but a cool and windy start to summer made flowering uneven. The conditions in late summer were dry and that meant the grapes were ripened very late in the season, with the fruit coming off in great condition considering the length of time on the vine.
Winemaking
Dave Johnson our winemaker took the grapes in and became a devotee very early on. The wine was fermented in an open vat and plunged 3-4 times a day to extract colour and tannins softly, with ferment being completed after 12 days. The wine was pressed and placed in three French oak barrels (2 new and 1 2yo) and stored for 18 months. Minimal handling and maximal flavours and texture was the target for this wine – so new and so different the grapes we wanted to see its “true” expression to our Margaret River “terroir”.
Appearance
Deep red black.
Food Pairing
Quirky, puzzling, but golly this is delicious. I am one for thinking this may be the wine of all wines for Mexican food.
