Nose
Poached plums and blueberries well spiced with vanilla, cracked pepper, violets and mocha.
Palate
Reminiscent of a freshly baked blue berry muffin with warm supple fruit, gentle caramel and vanilla notes supported by fine guiding tannins. Margaret River in style with its opulent sweet fruit, open weave tannins and all round generosity.
Growing Conditions
Margaret River began the growing season with a rain filled soil profile and full catchments. Late spring was mild and windy with a 4 day period of damaging north westerlies during flowering. This common spring weather pattern did affect set and subsequent yields in all varieties. Other than this blustery start, the vintage was uniformly warm to hot and without significant summer rains. With yields below average, the wines produced from the 2013 vintage are full of well-defined varietal fruit flavours, bright acidity and supple tannins.
Winemaking
Harvest occurred from mid to late March. The best parcels from the Leston vineyard blocks 4 & 17 Shiraz are consistently chosen for this wine. Small parcels are hand- picked and all batches are sorted to remove matter other than grapes, prior to fermentation.
Vinification occurs in both open vat and closed stainless steel fermenters with diligent cap management to extract fine fruit tannin and strong varietal flavour. Select parcels of wine are run to barrel between 2 & 3º Be to capture new barrel characters from the final few degrees of fermentation. The remaining blocks are pressed at dryness to retain fruit vibrancy. After pressing, each batch is matured separately in order to build a wine history over time.
Post pressing, each batch is matured separately in order to build a wine history over time. The wine is matured for a minimum of 18 months in 40% new and 60% older, French oak barriques to ensure the thorough integration of oak and grape tannins. After egg white fining and light filtration, the wine is bottled.
Appearance
Dark crimson.
