The Wine: Hand-picked fruit, wild-fermented in a 134-year-old wax lined concrete open fermenter, 20% whole bunch (foot trodden for tannin extraction from ripe rachis), remainder destemmed. Cold soaked for 5 days, plunged and pumped over during peak of ferment, 10 days on skins. Wine was matured on lees for 10 months in French oak, 20% new.
Black core of fruits with whole white and black pepper spice notes, deep blueberry fruits, roasted earth note a fresh road tar aroma and coal dust. Medium framed and savoury, tannins fine like Dutch cocoa with hallmark Springs Hill fruit weight to complement. This is a wonderfully fine and complex Shiraz, indicative of site and the season it grew in.
The Review: Gary Walsh, The Wine Front - 94pts "Blue and black fruit, spice, new leather, iodine and oyster shell. It’s medium-bodied, kind of wheaty and spicy, distinct saline character, dried spices, blackcurrant and blueberry, some orange peel and dark chocolate bitterness, grainy open weave kind of dark chocolate tannin too, with a juicy and zesty finish of good length. Spicy, a little meaty too. Has a cool and composed character. A little sappy, but very good."
