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Wine Description
The Story
Noon Eclipse is a generous, full bodied wine produced predominately from Grenache (80%+), with smaller components of Shiraz and Graciano, all from our McLaren Vale estate vineyards. Prior to the 2011 vintage, Eclipse was made from estate Grenache (approx 65%) with Langhorne Creek Shiraz (approx 35%).
Noon Eclipse can be enjoyed as a young wine or cellared and consumed as a more complex and gentle older wine at around 10 years plus. We find most vintages show the first signs of maturity at about 4-5 years and then go through a period during which they show aspects of both youth and maturity before developing from about 10 years of age into a gentle, fully mature wine.
Experience suggests that it is best to decant this wine prior to serving to release the flavours. This experience may change with the increasing proportion of Grenache since 2011 and then the change to screw caps from 2012 but it is too early to say at present.
Note that there was no 2009 Noon Eclipse produced due to the drought and heat wave leading up to this harvest.
Food matching suggestions
Noon Eclipse is best served with richly flavoured foods. It is not a wine for sipping over a light summer salad lunch. It is more suited to an Autumn or Winter’s evening with some richly flavoured fare based around chorizo sausage, anchovies, olives etc.; think along the lines of hearty Mediterranean food.
The stage of maturity of the wine also has an influence on the best food pairing. As a young wine (say from 1 to 4 years) choose quite strongly flavoured more complex dishes such as wild hare or duck in richly sauced casseroles. As an older wine choose robust dishes but served simply, with minimal adornment such as char grilled steak with chips or roast chicken. For tasting notes on individual vintages of this wine click on ‘tasting notes’ above.
Varietal composition
Grenache (80-90%), Shiraz (10-15%) and Graciano (5-10%); all estate grown.
Prior to 2011 the Eclipse was typically produced from 65% estate grown Grenache and 35% Langhorne Creek Shiraz (20 Rows block).
Winemaking
Noon Eclipse is usually quite high in alcohol because it is produced from Grenache grapes from low yielding vines. We do not set out with the aim of making a wine of high (or low) alcohol. Our desire rather is to harvest fully ripe fruit which best express the flavour of the grapes and the site.
Noon Eclipse is matured in small 300 litre French and American oak barrels and large (Foudre and demi-muid sized) oak casks for 18 months. There is only a small percentage of new oak used (about 5-10%) normally just for maturing the Shiraz portion of the wine.
The grapes are picked by hand and fermentation takes place in small open vats with manual pigeage, to help extract colour and tannins. Pressing is also done by hand, using small basket presses which are gentle and do not extract too much bitterness or astringency.
Very little else is added or taken away by modern winemaking methods. We prefer to take a minimalist approach, believing that this will deliver a wine which genuinely reflects the grapes and the site.
Noon Eclipse is grown, made and bottled on the estate.
The Vineyard
We are lucky here in South Australia to have old vines growing on their own roots (not grafted onto rootstocks necessitated by the presence of phylloxera). This could be more important than is generally recognised, allowing our vines to more readily reflect their terroir and produce wines with a ‘sense of place’. This circumstance is quite rare in a world sense and gives us a unique advantage.
Our vines grow in natural harmony with their environment. They are unirrigated and not trellised, so they appear quite 'free range' compared to most modern vineyards. Yields are low, ensuring the grapes ripen easily with full flavour development.
The grapes for Noon Eclipse are picked from three vineyards surrounding and adjacent to our winery in McLaren Vale. From the Winery Block where we grow Grenache bush vines, which were planted in 1934; from the Almond Block where we grow Shiraz and Graciano (bush vines) which were planted between 1998 and 2001, and from BJ’s Block which is another Grenache bush vine vineyard, planted in 1943.
We believe the key to Noon Eclipse lies in the special qualities that each of these blocks and varieties brings to the blend and feel lucky to be able to work with such wonderful vineyards.
Average Production
Average production is 700 - 800 dozen 750ml bottles. Older vineyards reflect the seasons more clearly and production can vary significantly, especially in years affected by drought.
Wine Information
Despite the generally very low rainfall (and above average temperatures) the flowering in spring was quite successful due to a well timed rain period at the beginning of November, just before the flowering commenced. This led to a surprisingly good sized crop being set despite the dry conditions (I feel that it also had something to do with the vines compensating for the previous year’s very small crops in 2007). The grapes began ripening quickly and by February, with temperatures at last falling to below average, expectations of a good vintage were beginning to grow.
We commenced another early harvest on the 1st of March with BJ’s Grenache (unusual, in that we normally start with Shiraz) and 2 days later the extraordinary, record breaking March heat wave and the problems began. From the 3rd of March we experienced an unprecedented 14 days in a row with maximum temperatures of 35C or more, precipitating a chaotic harvest period where we began a race with the unrelenting heat to gather the rest of the crop before it shrivelled on the vines. We were only partially successful in this, eventually losing a lot of the Shiraz, the Winery East block of Grenache that we had earmarked for port and half of the Cabernet crop, which had raisined to the point of being unfermentable.
The picking was over by the 15th of March, just 2 weeks after we began. This very compacted harvest period brought a heavy workload in the winery, with lots of ferments needing cooling and endless vats to ram (manual plunging of the cap of skins back into the fermenting juice). We were fortunate to have our Alaskan friend Keith arrive in the middle of this period and stay to help with the heavy work (he claims he’s happy to have gone home fitter than when he arrived but I think he may be just being polite!). There was a certain glazed look in all of our eyes when it was over and I remember falling asleep at the dinner table on more than one occasion!
The results were: We had many excellent batches of Grenache, including one suitable for Solaire. Shiraz however was in short supply and Cabernet was the same. There was enough Shiraz to go with the Grenache we had for Eclipse but not enough to bottle a Reserve Shiraz and only a very small amount of (excellent quality) Cabernet. We decided to put this entirely to the Eclipse this year as there was not enough to offer around to everyone and it only enhanced the Eclipse wine. The outcome is a lovely 2008 Noon Eclipse characterized by ripe fruit aromas and a richness of structure which makes it delicious to drink straight away, as well as possessing the depth and tannin balance to mature nicely with further cellaring.
This softness and early drinkability of 2008 is in complete contrast to the 2007 reds released last year which demand some cellaring to be at their best. This is what makes wine always interesting……..it’s never the same from one year to the next.
We finished the 2008 vintage disappointed by the losses. Loss of what could have been ….. if only we could have got the crop off quicker……. if only there’d been a cool change in the middle of the heat to let the grapes recover. It was not a vintage which played into our hands but we accept that, you can’t win them all and fortunately we have a terrific Noon Eclipse out of it, a Solaire for the first time since 2004 and a great Twelve Bells for current drinking too, so it’s not all bad news by any means! We feel grateful for what we have.