McLaren Vale, Australia

Appearance - Brilliant, garnet with purple hues

Nose - Ripe rich blackberry and sweet French oak characters. Fruit driven with a touch of spice.

Palate - Again intense mulberry fruit with ripe plum and sweet vanillin oak. A smooth, full, silky mouthfeel with fine-grained tannins that give it both length and structure. Elegant oak tannins also integrate well to balance the palate then persist through to a lively clean fruit finish.

A big powerful wine that while young and lively now, will drink well, but will improve with further bottle maturation of seven to 10 years.

The perfect accompaniment to beef, lamb, duck & venison.

Vintage

Good winter rainfall in the McLaren Vale region and a mild start to the growing season allowed for healthy vine growth in the area and also early ripening of high quality fruit showing strong varietal characteristics. That coupled with the low crop loads in the Thomas Vineyards and the maritime influences experienced in the Willunga basin have resulted in fruit and therefore wine with intense ripe flavours and excellent structure.

Winemaking

Fruit was picked on March 3rd 2005 and immediately transported to the winery for processing. It is fermented under cool conditions with a selected yeast strain to retain the aromatic characteristics of the fruit while developing the structure and tannin backbone of the wine.

The wine once fermented was pressed then seeded with a selected malolactic culture again to enhance and retain the fruit characteristics. After malolactic fermentation is completed the wine is racked into predominantly french oak for maturation. A mixture of new and 2 to 3 year old french oak barrels is used to give an elegant complexity of oak characteristics.

During the 15 months maturation in oak the wine is racked to assist its clarification and reduce the need for filtration of the finished wine.

Minimalist handling techniques have been utilised at all stages of the production of this wine in an attempt to reduce maceration of fruit and retain as much of its premium fruit character while still enhancing the structure and intense flavour of the wine.

Technical aspects

Geographic region - McLaren Vale

Picking date - 3 March 2005

Variety - 100% Shiraz - Estate grown

Sugar level – 15.3 Baume

Alcohol – 15.5%

Residual sugar – 2.4 g/L

Bottling date - 7 July 2006

Cellaring potential - 7 to 10 years