Analysis:
Alcohol: 14.0% | PH:3.72 | Titratable acidity (as tartaric acid): 5.93 g/L
Bottling Date: August 2013
Tasting Notes:
A ripe and intense wine with pronounced aromas of damson plum, milk chocolate, custard, blackberry, black olive and dark cherry with smoked paprika and a background of freshly ground black pepper.The palate is full and rich yet balanced with refreshing acidity with the chocolaty oak flavours giving way to blackberry, dried cherry and plum along with complex hints of leather, pepper, mint and dried thyme all with an undercurrent of dusty and earthy ripe tannins that provide great length. Pair this with a hearty beef stew heavy on garlic and black pepper or braised lamb shanks. — Rhys Pender, Master of Wine.
Wine Making:
The 2011 growing season turned out to be, on average, one of the cooler seasons in recent history. However, with careful vineyard management to ensure low yield from our vineyards, the grapes reached high sugar levels, perfect acidity and low pH. The long hang time (i.e. late harvest date) resulted in optimal phenolic ripening of the grapes, which contributes vital characteristics to the color, texture and flavour of wine. At Burrowing Owl, we are really excited about this vintage and are expecting some unbelievable wines.
The grapes for the 2011 Syrah were hand harvested in early November from Burrowing Owl's vineyard on Black Sage Road. The fruit was de-stemmed, lightly crushed and gravity dropped into closed top stainless steel tanks where it was warmed for natural ferment to begin. The fermentation was approximately 20 days. During this period, regular pump-overs and delestage occurred, to ensure complete extraction of the desirable components from the skins. The wine was given time on the skins before being pressed off and transferred into batch appropriate barrels for malolactic (ML) fermentation. After ML, the wine was racked off its lees and transferred back into a mixture of French, American and Russian oak (40% new oak), where it was aged for 16 months.