Hunter Valley Shiraz 2007

Region
Lower Hunter Valley, NSW

Appearance
Dark ruby with purple hues

Bouquet
Lifted blackberry and plum aromas and spicy overtones

Palate
A fine, detailed, medium bodied Hunter Shiraz with mouth filling plum accompanied by a mid palate of sweet earth, liquorice and cocoa with supple tannins and generous length of flavour.

Vintage Conditions
Vintage conditions treated us to fine and mild weather with dry conditions offering a favourable maturation period providing excellent ripening conditions. This allowed fruit of the highest quality to be hand picked at optimum maturity.

Winemaking
Fruit was sourced from our Wills Hill Vineyard from the blocks planted in the soil of duplex brown clay loam  containing decomposed laterite granite known as “Ironstone”. Fruit was picked in the cool of the morning by hand and transported to the winery in small 10kg buckets. Hand sorting is then conducted to eliminate sub-standard bunches, 20% of fruit is placed whole on the bottom of a stainless steel open fermenter, 80% of the fruit is gently de-stemmed to maintain the berries intact and tipped on top of the whole fruit, this preserves the inherent fruit aroma and offers the best possible expression of the vineyard in the resultant wine. Cold maceration for 72 hours allows for a slow controlled initiation of fermentation with indigenous yeasts to enhance complexity and colour extraction, fermentation was over 10 days reaching a maximum of 32°C, post fermentation maceration takes a further 5 days with plunging before pressing.

Wine Analysis
Alc/Vol : 13.5 %   pH : 3.56   TA : 6.25

Cellaring
Will continue to develop with good cellaring conditions ( 14°C ) over the next 8-10 years.

Suggested Cuisine
Rich red meat dishes such as beef casserole, game or venison.

General Characteristics
Dry  Medium Bodied