Analysis:
Alcohol: 14.0% | PH: 3.71 | Titratable acidity: 7.4 g/L
Bottling Date: July, 2012
Cellaring: 7 - 10 Years
Tasting Notes:
A big, intense and complex Syrah.The colour is deep purple with intense aromas covering the diverse spectrum from ripe black plum and blackberry through smoke, leather and game meat to pepper, dried sage brush and paprika all wrapped up nicely with chocolaty oak. The full bodied palate with juicy acidity and round, ripe tannins has complex black cherry, blueberry, plum, dried raspberry, pepper, coffee and gamy, meaty notes that linger on a very long finish.There is a roundness that makes this drinkable now but cellaring for 5 to 8 years will unveil layer upon layer of intrigue.This begs to be paired with a roasted leg of lamb rubbed with paprika. — Rhys Pender, Master of Wine.
Wine Making:
The 2010 vintage is expected to yield excellent quality. Even though we started late and experienced unseasonably cool summer weather, dry and sunny October saved the day. All the grapes were hand harvested at the end of October, 2010.The fruit was de-stemmed, lightly crushed and gravity dropped into closed top stainless steel tanks and then warmed for natural ferment to occur. The fermentation was approximately 20 days. During this period we did regular pump-overs and delestage to ensure complete extraction of the desirable components from the skins.The wine was given time on the skins before it was pressed off and transferred into batch appropriate barrels for malolactic fermentation.
At the completion of malolactic fermentation, the wine was racked off of its lees and transferred back into batch selected barrels.The barrels were a mixture of French, American, and Russian oak (40% new oak) where it was aged for i6 months with occasional racking until bottling in July 2012.
