Winemaker Notes
This wine is a deep, vibrant red-purple color. Delicious aromas of sweet, red berries, chocolate and mixed spices carry through onto the palate which is counterbalanced with great acidity and powerful, supple tannins. Drink now or keep for 20 years.
Our aim is to make great wine, with the preservation of nature's flavours, complexities and balance in our wines by using minimal intervention in our vineyards and in the cellar - to allow the individual vineyard's "terroir" or sense of place to express itself.
Our wines are produced entirely on the estate using organic/biodynamic principles. We produce our own organic compost and have never used synthetic chemicals on either the vines or the soils, since our vineyards were planted in 1975.
Viticultural practices are as close to nature as we can get them: own rooted vines (ie. not grafted on to American rootstocks to confer Phylloxera resistance), no irrigation whatsoever, minimal tillage, natural inter-row mulching leading to broad bio-diversity, in turn giving depth and intensity to our wines. Only hand pruning of the vines and hand harvesting of the fruit can allow us the human connection to our living soil.
Minimal intervention is used during fermentation and maturation, allowing terroir or earth character of the individual paddock or plot to emerge in the wine. More importantly the grapes at harvest are flavour ripe, regardless of sugar ripeness.
Historically some of Australia’s most lucrative gold country, today Heathcote maintains its esteemed reputation as a source of country’s best red wines. The rolling countryside of ancient reddish brown soils bordered by mountain ranges that funnel cool air into the region during the growing season create some of Australia’s most deeply-hued and impressively layered Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”