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  • Country ranking ?

    208
  • Producer ranking ?

    2
  • Decanting time

    3h
  • When to drink

    now to 2030
  • Food Pairing

    hearty Mediterranean food

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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.

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Wine Information

The season began well, with good opening rains in late April. The rain petered out a bit in May and June, before returning with very good falls in July to give us optimism for the beginning of the growing season… A warm August led to an early bud-break and the weather continued warmer than average through September despite a sudden return to cool and wintry conditions for a week at the end of the month.

 

October was lacking a little rain but temperatures were average until it suddenly became quite warm (temperatures into the low 30’s) in the last few days of the month. Unfortunately the unseasonal heat returned with a vengeance a week or so later in early November, with the period from the 8th until the 19th being ridiculously hot, finishing with a maximum of 41.8 degrees (Noarlunga) on the 19th! During this 12 day period, every day except the 16th and 17th was over 35 degrees!! Unfortunately this coincided with flowering time for the Grenache (as well as Cellar Door opening!) and the vines dropped most of the potential crop. Many flowers burnt off in the heat without even successfully pollinating and most that did pollinate, fell off in the days after as the heatwave continued.

 

Amazingly, November was hotter overall (higher mean maximum temperature) than any of the summer months to follow…in short, it was much too hot, too early! Fortunately the Borrett family vineyards in Langhorne Creek fared better, the flowering being later by a critical week or two there. Even so, the Cabernet decided to take a year off and set only a very small crop but the Shiraz set very well.

 

Temperatures for the rest of the season remained slightly above average but avoided extremes (except for 4 very hot days from 8 -11 January which burnt many exposed berries, especially on the young Graciano) with rainfall low, bringing about an earlier than usual harvest. This was particularly so for the Grenache which was carrying only a very small crop.

 

We picked all of the Grenache (both blocks) on Friday 26th February, more than 2 weeks ahead of normal. We had to pay the pickers by the hour instead of the bucket to enable them to make a decent wage…which made picking costly but that’s what happens in years when you get such a low crop.

 

The fruit was in lovely condition and the berries were larger than usual as the vines tried to compensate for the reduced berry number. The young wine looked lovely – perfumed, soft and complex. The Shiraz at Langhorne Creek was a highlight. The fruit appeared in perfect health and ripened steadily, giving us time to choose our moment for picking (a relief from the rush to pick of 2007, 2008 and 2009).

 

We began on Sat 13th March with fruit for the Dark Noon Rosé (released last year) completing the balance of the block in 3 picks by Thursday 18th. It was a good-sized crop and all the signs looked promising for quality. The ferments proceeded smoothly on natural yeast and the wine looked dark, tasting spicy and firm.

 

Our last pick was the Cabernet on March 26. As expected, the crop was tiny, not giving enough to produce a useable quantity of Reserve Cabernet, so there’s no Reserve Cabernet from 2010 (or 2011…here’s hoping for a kinder 2012 harvest!).

 

So that was the vintage in 2010 – more weather dramas leading to another reduced range of wines and the wines themselves quite classic and reserved as the heat happened too early to impact directly on the wine style. They are quite different from the 2009 wines released last year, being lower in alcohol, with more restrained personalities.

 

Thinking of comparisons (though no two vintages are ever the same) they share some characteristics with the 2004 reds. Not blockbusters or showstoppers, their strength is their lovely natural balance. We have sought to retain this through minimal processing.

 

They are wines which invite closer scrutiny. They are more evocative than emphatic in nature. I suspect their fine structure will amply reward cellaring and recommend you give them a few years or more in the cellar if possible before consumption.

 

We trust you will enjoy them for many years to come.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

<10 tasting notes

Tasting note

color

Deep

flavors

Voluptuous, Cigar-box, Meaty, Mushrooms, Earthy and Port-like

nose

Wide, Opulent, Tempting and Charming

taste

Medium tannin, Balanced, Developing, Medium-bodied, Harmonious, Focused and Ripe

Verdict

Transparent and Well made

Information

Origin

McLaren Vale, South Australia

Other wines from this producer

Reserve Shiraz

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