Nose
starts with cassis and dark forest fruits with some briary touches moving to rich blackcurrant with notes of cedar.
Palate
forest fruits, wild mushroom and blackcurrant leaf on the palate. Well structured and poised.
Growing Conditions
This was arguably one of the best vintages for red wine in the last decade. There was slightly above average rainfall and then the weather turned warm and dry in January. All varieties were able to proceed at a steady but leisurely pace to full ripeness. The warmer weather did bring the vintage around 2 weeks earlier but this was no problem as tannins achieved full ripeness early in the season. There was an abundant blossoming of Marri leading into and during vintage, which kept birds away and little to no disease was present.
Winemaking
The grapes were picked during the cool of the morning, sorted to remove berries that had not reached optimal ripeness, destemmed and placed in an open fermenter. Inoculated with a neutral yeast strain to retain pure fruit aromas and hand plunged up to four times a day, for 12 days. A further 10 days on skins ensured further gentle extraction of colour and flavour and more complex tannins. The wine was then gently basket pressed direct to barrel for malolactic fermentation. Once racked the wine was returned to a mix of 50% new and 50% one year old French barriques to mature for 16 months. Blended and bottled in November 2013 with the use of no fining agents to ensure fruit purity was retained. This exceptional wine can be enjoyed now; or will develop more complexity in the bottle with careful cellaring for up to 15 years
Appearance
Deep dark red.
