Reserve Collection Syrah

The grapes are hand-picked in small picking crates and loaded into a cold store where they are chilled down to approximately 6 degrees Celsius overnight. 25% of the grapes were first placed into the tank as whole bunches. The remainder of the grapes were de-stemmed and crushed directly into tank for fermentation without the use of pumps. There was an initial period of cold maceration for 4 days before the fermentation started spontaneously (without the use of selected yeast strains). Pumpovers, dellastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until fermentation was completed. The tanks were given maceration post fermentation and malolactic fermentation began spontaneously during this period. The wines were put to barrel to complete malolactic fermentation after which they were racked, sulphured and put back to barrel for a further maturation. There were minimal racking’s during maturation.

This wine is 100% Shiraz from a single block made up of 2 clones. It is terraced into our steepest and most rocky terroir which lends itself perfectly to the variety and produces our most expressive Syrah. The average yield is around 8t/ha. The grapes were hand- picked on the 26th of February and the 8th March. The grapes are picked at optimum flavour and phenolic ripeness with sugars of between 23.4 and 24.9 degrees brix with acidities around 5.5 g/l.

The wine matured on the fine lees for 10 months after which it is racked to tank at the time of blending. The wine was then returned to barrel for a further 11 months before being racked again prior to bottling.