Vineyard Blocks 

Mostly from a single block 7 year old vines. Soil, a poor gravel and clay mixture, Hutton type. Clone CS 46A ( cleaned up old clone ) on 101-14 rootstock. 3 wire vertical trellis. Due to low vigour in a particularly dry vintage only the minimum canopy management required. Low 4 1/2 tons per hectare yield. Grapes were picked at optimum phenolic ripeness during the first week in March.

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Vintage Conditions

 

The long, dry, trouble free summer produced brilliant grapes from particularly low yielding vines that were a joy to work with.

Harvested 23/2/95 – 21/3/95 at between 20 – 24.5° balling.

 

Production

Fermentation using indigenous ( wild ) yeasts in open top fermentors at 28 - 32 degrees.

10 - 13 days skin contact allowed, before draining directly to 225 litre barrels for malolactic fermentation. All press wine added from single pressing in traditional basket press. Matured for

20 months in 40 % new French oak barrels from Taransaud and Demptos coopers. Racked

5 times and fined with egg whites ( 4 eggs per barrel ).

Bottled unfiltered by hand, early November 1996.

Production - 250 cases.

 

Tasting Notes

The result - a dense, purple tinted  wine with a concentrated nose of blackberries, cassis and spicy new oak. Full flavoured and complex on the palate. Classically structured with great length and finesse, it should develop well over the next 4 to 10 years.

 

Analysis

Alc. 13.11       Sugar 1.8        TA 5.4          pH 3.57         VA 0.52         SO2 tot 68         SO2 free 30