HEATHCOTE SHIRAZ 2001 - RESERVE RELEASE
This 2001 Heathcote Shiraz has been re-released from our reserve stocks, providing an opportunity to access this wine with some extra bottle age.
Heathcote Shiraz has won 3 Trophies and 48 Gold Medals over just 12 vintages, making it one of the best performing Australian Shirazes in recent years.
The limited quantities and popularity of this wine combine to make it disappear quickly.
Heathcote Wine Region, in Central Victoria, has a rapidly growing reputation as a great place to grow Shiraz. It features a deep strip of rare, red Cambrian soil with excellent moisture retention characteristics, that virtually eliminates the need for irrigation. It is this red soil that gives Heathcote Shiraz its distinctive character.
The combination of low rainfall, hot summers and the red Cambrian soil creates a challenging environment in which the Shiraz vines thrive, albeit producing low yields and small berries with intense flavours.
The 2001 Heathcote Shiraz is the fifth release from our ‘Athols Paddock’ vineyard and this vintage includes fruit from the Colbinabbin vineyard and the Joe Marton vineyard.
All the fruit is handled separately at every stage of winemaking, right up to the assembly of the final blend. We have absolute control over all components.
In 2001 we had an extremely dry season, however we were saved by 4" of rain in January and so avoided stressed vines and associated lower yields
The 2001 vintage has already received two ‘Very Highly Commended’ awards as a barrel sample at the 2002 Ballarat Wine Show (‘Very Highly Commended’ for a barrel sample is the equivalent of a Gold Medal awarded to a bottled wine).
This is the second vintage to make use of new, ‘steam-bent’, medium toast, American oak barriques that engender a smoother, subtler oak character in the wine, and with less vanillan influences. The wine was matured in this oak for eighteen months.
Our Heathcote fruit is always picked on flavour, and in this aspect of the wine we are aiming for consistency. The new oak is subtler, smoother and more integrated, the fruit characters are more prominent.
TASTING NOTES
It is a rich, elegant wine, beautifully balanced and with great cellaring potential. The colour is deep, intense purple/mulberry and the nose exhibits elegant, plum/berry aromas with a gentle oak presence and some mintiness.
On the palate it has a silky texture, complexity, delicious plummy berry flavours and a good balance between the fruit, oak and tannin. Alcohol is 14% by volume.
CELLARING POTENTIAL
Try not to uncork this wine for at least five years. Ten to fifteen years would be even better.
John Ellis, Winemaker
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