Intense nose of deep semi-dried fruit and warm spice. The palate is less fruit forward, offering hints of black fruit alongside savoury spice, herbaceous notes and a brush of chocolate. Held together with wonderfully silken tannins. Very classy.

Vineyard

Made with fruit hand-picked from the oldest dry-grown Shiraz vines at the estate owned vineyard at White Hut in the Clare Valley. The vines grow in a mosaic of friable red loam and clay, with gravel and quartz, and patches of slate. These soils are tough, bony and low-yielding, producing fruit with character, exceptional power and intensity.

Winemaking

Another typically handmade wine of ours. The fruit was cold-soaked, hand-plunged in open fermenters, and cool-fermented between 18ºC and 24ºC. By employing a longer, cooler extraction, we were able to better preserve fruit flavours and characteristics, giving a purer expression of the vineyard and fruit. Wild fermentation and extended maceration were used to build complexity and mouthfeel in the wine, before maturation in a combination of new and old French oak (approximately 20% new). The final wine was barrel-selected to ensure that only the best barrels were used, and blended in accordance with our own house style.

The Wine

A powerful and intense wine with blackcurrants, liquorice, cinnamon, nutmeg and dusty oak on the nose. Elegant and rich, the palate is also textural and supple, with firm tannins and well-integrated oak character that give the wine great mouthfeel, texture, length and persistence of flavour. Great line and structure give the wine the capacity for long-term cellaring.

“The bouquet and palate are singularly complex, with black fruits, tanned leather, licorice, spice and French oak in flawless balance, tannins playing a carefully calculated support role.” 
— James Halliday (2014 vintage)