Growing Conditions
The growing season began with good, even budburst after average Winter rainfall. The mild Spring which followed ensured that there was good flowering and fruit set. A moderate start to Summer, with no heat extremes, set up the harvest well with white varieties offering great flavour intensity and bright acidity. There was an incredible display of Marri blossom (tagged as a once in a generation ‘mega-blossom’) which meant bird pressure was practically nonexistent whilst the whites were harvested. A minor rain event occurred in mid-March, which was followed by fine warm conditions which prevailed right through to middle of April allowing all red varieties to achieve great flavour and tannin ripeness. In summary 2018 will be remembered as an outstanding vintage! Fruit for this blend was predominantly Estate grown (86%) on our Boodjidup and Stevens Road vineyards in the Wallcliffe sub-region of Margaret River, complimented by a portion (14%) of fruit from a mature vineyard in Karridale.
Winemaking
The fruit was destemmed and then crushed with open rollers to introduce whole berries into the ferment. After fermentation in both static and rotary fermenters, the various batches underwent MLF and 14 months maturation in a selection of fine French oak barriques (25% new oak in total) prior to assembling the blend and bottling.
