Palate
Enticing bouquet of poached plums, blueberries, cinnamon, cracked pepper, violets and mocha. The palate is abundantly rich, full of supple ripe fruit and finished with moreish chewy fruit tannins and a dust of oak.
Growing Conditions
Our 2012 vintage conditions in Margaret River were benign and free of significant weather events such as heat spikes or summer rains. Diurnal temperature variations were below average which meant the nights remained warm. The strong maritime cooling influences and retained soil moisture allowed the vines to maintain strong canopies until harvest. While the characteristic afternoon southerly winds appeared less grating, the lack of humidity and warm conditions kept disease pressure low and vine function high. The wines produced from the 2012 vintage are full of ripe fruit flavours, bright acidity and supple tannins.
Winemaking
Harvest of the 2012 Leston Shiraz occurred in late March.
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 were run to barrel at 2 to 3º Be to capture new barrel characters from the final few degrees of fermentation .The remaining blocks were pressed at dryness to retain fruit vibrancy.
Barrel maturation occurs in 30 % new and 70% older barriques of which 95% are French oak and 5 % American oak. 18 months in oak, is ample time to achieve the thorough integration of oak and grape tannins. After pressing, each batch is matured separately in order to build a wine history over time. The wine was blended in September 2013 from a selection of the best parcels off Leston Block 17 Shiraz. This block was planted in 2000.
After egg white fining and light filtration, the wine was bottled.
Appearance
dark crimson colour.
