2007 Stone Axe Shiraz
Our vision for Heathcote Shiraz is for a concentrated wine without excessive alcohol and overripe flavours. We take fruit from Glen and Cathy Rathjens tiny Stone Axe vineyard in Colbinabbin. Cathy, has an organic approach to viticulture, irrigates sparingly and produces fruit with great concentration. The grapes were destemmed and wild yeast fermented in small open fermenters with regular plunging and pumping over. The wine was left on skins for 23 days to extract then soften the tannins, then matured for a further 10 months in French oak Barriques. The wine shows characteristic earthy, gunpowder and bay leaf aromas with fine and abundant tannins.
95 cases produced.
2006 Stone Axe Shiraz
Our vision for Heathcote Shiraz is for a concentrated wine without excessive alcohol and over ripe flavours. We take fruit from Glen and Cathy Rathjens tiny Stone Axe vineyard in Colbinabbin, which is at the Northern, warmer end of the Heathcote GI .
Cathy, who has an organic approach to viticulture, beautifully manages the vineyard and consequently the vines are not sprayed with herbicides or fungicides. Cathy irrigates sparingly, producing fruit with great concentration. We picked the vineyard when we felt we had achieved good phenolic ripeness but before sugar levels had climbed to levels that would result in an overly alcoholic or porty wine.
The grapes were wild yeast fermented in small open fermenters with regular plunging and pumping over. The wine was left on skins for 19 days to extract then soften the tannins, then matured for a further 10 months in French oak Barriques.
The wine shows characteristic earthy, gunpowder and bay leaf aromas with fine and abundant tannins.
200 cases produced.