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Wine Description
The Story
Most of McLaren Vale's acclaimed and historic vineyards are impregnated with ancient, decomposed laterite granite known as ironstone. Its extraordinary rusty redbrown colour is derived from the iron oxides present in the stone. The larger pieces were cleared from the vineyards in the late 1880's and utilised in many of the buildings at d'Arenberg, most notably the old stables.
This wine is extremely alluring. The intriguing nose is at once both fresh and complex. Blood orange, black cherry, and dark fruits leap out of the glass. Behind them lurk complex notes of sooty earth, game, and charcuterie. Baking spices make themselves known and there is a ferrous-like aroma of fresh blood which flows through onto the palate. Here the wine starts building layers of flavour. Initially red berries, brooding mulberry, and plummy sweet fruit flood the tongue. This is followed with finely balanced, savoury mid-palate weight, accentuated by spicy minerality. A very subtle hint of lightly toasted oak is supported and carried by lively fine tannins on the vibrant and lingering finish. Intoxicatingly alluring.
Small batches of grapes are gently crushed and then transferred to five tonne headed down open fermenters. These batches remain separate until final blending. Foot treading is undertaken two thirds of the way through fermentation. The wine is then basket pressed and transferred to a mixture of new and used French oak barriques to complete fermentation. The barrel ferments are aged on lees, there is no racking until final blending and no fining or filtration.
Vintage 2009
Near-optimum rainfall over winter, followed by dry, mild conditions over spring provided a good environment for budburst and an ideal start to the growing season with canopies developing well. Climatic conditions favoured flowering and set with mild and calm weather, however there was some shatter in Shiraz across parts of the state resulting in small crops for many regions. Some early to mid-December summer rainfall was followed by conditions drying up very quickly and continuing until the end of February. Summer was hot with some extreme heat but cool conditions returned in February and March, allowing the fruit to ripen across a long harvest with balanced acidities and excellent tannin ripeness. An elegant, yet still powerful follow up to the conditions brought about in the preceding 2008 vintage |