Heathcote, Victoria

This fruit is grown by me in partnership with Helen and Greg Miles of Colliban Valley vineyard; a site that they planted in 1997 and have farmed without irrigation for most of its life. The site is located at the edge of the harcourt granite, with lenses of clay amongst granitic soil over the occasional bedrock outcrop. 

Metcalfe is a site that offers amazing naturally acidity along with the ability to full ripen Shiraz. Powerful and full-flavoured yet bright and precise. The fruit was destemmed and wild fermented in open milk vats for 21 days with plenty of extraction then pressed off and aged on solids in seasoned puncheons for 10 months. Bottled with 30 ppm sulphur dioxide and aged in bottle for a further 12 months prior to release. 

Anything but typical of a Heathcote shiraz, but for me a great example of a finer boned and fruitful example of shiraz grown on granite in the cooler Coliban Valley. - Minim