Nose

With aroma of blueberries, mulberries, spice, mocha, dark chocolate and cedar, it is a complex and engaging wine.

Palate

The palate is red and blue fruits to start. The flavours build to a beautifully textural mid palate, supported by the spicy oak, and gently fade with finely honed tannins.

Growing Conditions

Vineyard: From one old vine, dry grown, vineyard in Willyabrup, planted in the late 70's. The vineyard is on a gravelly ridge with a view to the north - it looks untidy and dishevelled, but produces fantastic grapes.

The 2014 season: Some strong winds early in Spring damaged early ripening varieties and exposed vineyards. As such, some varieties had very low yields. Later bursting varieties, and more protected vineyards were not affected. The balance of Spring was warm and mild, and the start of a perfect ripening season. The summer was warm, with a few hot days, but nothing extreme. Plenty of Marri blossom kept the threat from birds to a minimum, and the season breaking rains came in late April, well after the grapes were harvested. This is the 8th great season in a row for Margaret River.

Winemaking

Winemaking: These grapes were hand harvested on the 3rd April – one batch only. Fermentation was in a few open 1 tonne fermenters, with thrice daily plunging. There was no temperature control. Following fermentation, the wine remained on skins for two and a half weeks. Mlf occurred during this period. The wine was subsequently pressed. Pressings wine was included. The wine was allowed to settle for 2 weeks, and then transferred to French oak thin stave barriques. It remained in these barrels for 3 years.
Following barrel maturation, the barrels were blended, fined with free range egg whites, and prepared for bottling.
Bottling was done manually on a four head gravity filler.
After bottling, the wine was then allowed to relax in bottle for a further 15 months prior to being made available for sale. This wine will be released in August, 2018.

Food Pairing

Osso Buco, slow roast shoulder of lamb, venison with mushroom risotto.