McLaren Vale, Australia

Appearance - Brilliant, deep blood red with purple hues

Nose - Ripe rich mulberry and sweet French oak characters. Powerful primary fruit characters with a hint of spice and chocolate.

Palate - Again intense mulberry fruit with ripe plum and sweet vanillin oak. A smooth, full, succulent 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 greatly improve with age.

The perfect accompaniment to all meat dishes!

Vintage

2004 was an exceptionally good growing season in the McLaren Vale region. A long mild ripening period with small amounts of rainfall produced fruit with strong varietal characteristics and of exceptionally high quality. 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 flavours and excellent structure.

Winemaking

Fruit was picked on 2 March 2004 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 12-month 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 - 2 March 2004

Variety - 100% Shiraz - Estate grown

Sugar level - 14.6 Baume

Alcohol - 14.8%

pH - 3.56

TA - 6.1 g/L

Residual sugar - 1.8 g/L

Bottling date - 22 March 2005

Cellaring potential - 5 to 10 years