Nose

Concentrated black currants and blueberry fruits with underlying spices - cinnamon, vanilla and hints of Szechuan pepper.

Palate

Elegant and generous on the palate. This wine is full of blueberries, black currants and mulberries with savoury notes of cedar and mocha. Structurally, the fine grain tannins and acid work together, leading to a long supple finish. This wine holds more in reserve and will only improve with age, but is lovely to drink now. If you can, give the wine some time in the glass and watch as it opens up. Cellaring potential of ten to fifteen years plus from the vintage date.

Growing Conditions

The mild spring conditions merged into a warm and dry start to summer, with the vines on track slightly earlier than normal. These conditions were interrupted in mid-January 2016, with 70mm of rain falling in the vineyard due to a tropical rain event. With this moisture came the challenge of increased disease pressure on the fruit - 2 weeks out from the white harvest (leading to a very stressed Viticulturalist and Winemaker). Meticulous Vineyard management prevented any occurrence of disease and saw all the fruit through to optimum maturity. For the reds, it gave them a much appreciated drink in the lead up to harvest in late March. Despite the challenge, all fruit harvested was of exceptional quality, showing intense varietal characters.

Harvest

At optimal ripeness the fruit for this wine, as with all the Prendiville wines, was hand-picked and transferred to small bins for transport to the winery.

Winemaking

The two blocks were then treated slightly differently. The first block had 10% whole bunches added into the fermenter, the other was all from de-stemmed and crushed fruit. Both blocks were inoculated with a selected yeast strain and fermented in our new small batch open fermenters. The traditional method of pumping over was employed during fermentation twice per day to facilitate colour, flavour and tannin extraction. After the completion of Malolactic Fermentation, the wine was aged in new and 1 year old French oak barriques. After 15 months of barrel maturation only the best eighteen barriques were put aside for this release of the Prendiville Shiraz.

Appearance

Dark cherry red.

Food Pairing

This wine is vegan & vegetarian friendly.