Hay Shed Hill

Western Australia, South West Australia

Pitchfork Shiraz

$17 AUD

Release Price

Drink Window

14.5%

ABV

pH

TA

RS

Nose

Ripe cherry and plum fruits with chocolaty influences.

Palate

The palate displays good depth of fruit concentration, ripe sweet fruit fleshiness in the mid palate and good flavour extension.

Harvest

It can get a bit repetitive describing vintages in Margaret River, our lesser vintages are still pretty good and our good vintages are just perfect. 2018 will, I believe, be proven to be in time one of the great vintages.

Season 2018 can be described in short as ‘dry and mild’. The growing of fine wine grapes requires lots of good sunshine but not necessarily lots of heat. Hot weather will certainly aid the development of sugar but it seems to have very little to do with the development of all the desirable things like colour, aromas, flavours and tannins. So in fact milder seasons with good sunshine but cooler temperatures are usually the best; maximizing the development of aromas and flavours without ending up with high alcohols and over ripe jammy fruit characters.

It was an early start, perhaps a bit surprisingly considering a very mild spring and start of summer. The weather records will show that the summer months of February and March in the South West of WA were generally fine, very little rain and with no days over 40°, in fact at Hay Shed Hill we had no days over 35°. The mild weather allowed even, gradual ripening and moderate accumulation of sugar, ideal conditions for Shiraz.

At the Hay Shed Hill vineyard, which is very close to the Indian Ocean, we experienced a warm and dry winter, which meant that the vines never deeply entered dormancy as soil temperature stayed reasonably high. This led to a very early initial budburst. It is never good to burst early as spring in Wilyabrup can be quite wild with wet and windy conditions which can be devastating during the grapevine flowering period. And so it proved this season with hail, wind, and heavy rain during the critical flowering period leading to the low fruit set.

The challenges remained as we entered the summer part of the growing season with several rain episodes and generally mild conditions. This made ripening slow, which is not a bad thing except that we had pressure from the two main pests in grape growing in Margaret River, birds and kangaroos. It was one of those years with no blossom in the native trees across the whole of the South West, so very little food for the birds. Similarly, the dry winter severely limited the feed for kangaroos.

The accountant would doubtless judge 2019 as a very poor year, but when you toast the vintage with a glass from 2019 you will be grateful that not all decisions are made from a financial basis.

Winemaking

Shiraz from selected premium Margaret River vineyards were used to make this wine. Fermented in open stainless steel tanks with twice daily pumpovers aiding fruit tannin development. Maturation in new, 1, 2 and 3 year old French oak for 12 months encouraged wine development and structural complexity. The objective was to produce an elegant Shiraz with complex aromas and characters and with texture and structure, the use of French oak instead of traditional American oak gives rise to a wine of greater sophistication.