Description
This majestic wine was handcrafted from selected bunches off low yielding vines within the distinguished Gimblett Gravels winegrowing district. A symphony of luscious boysenberry, blueberry fruits, and subtle pepper spice and fragrant rose petal. The palate is a finely tuned performance of balance, texture, power and grace, with velvety tannins and intense fruit reaching a harmonious crescendo of refined oak and a sustained liquorice finale.
The Syrah grapes were sourced from the highly regarded Omahu Road area. Hand-picking occurred at ideal ripeness on April 17th at 22 Brix average.
The fruit was destemmed and transferred to open top fermentation vessels to have several parcels to later select from. Crushing was effected under the grapes’ own natural weight and cold-soaked for three days. Fermentation was thereafter initiated, with a combination of hand plunging and air rummage to extract and refine colour and structure.
Post fermentation, the parcels were allowed 14-20 days alcohol soak to attain optimal tannin structure and balance, before being gently pressed off skins and transferred to barrel in our temperature controlled cellar for 20 months élevage in quality French oak barrels, all 100% new 300 litre hogsheads. With just one racking throughout, there was minimal disturbance to the wines to allow natural gravity settling and clarification to occur.
A rigorous barrel tasting process was then undertaken to select the ideal barrel component for the final blend and wine style, left unfined, to preserve the natural flavours, and bottled unfiltered on the 15th of February 2022.
