Handpicked fruit from a unique dry grown vineyard in Toolleen, named "Dead Horse Hill", this Shiraz is punchy and bright, with a dry savoury palate.

2020 was a tough vintage for many grape growers and wine makers. For our dry grown "Dead Horse Hill" Vineyard, located in Toolleen (just beyond the Toolleen Pub), yields were particularly down after two very dry years, but the berries were tight, with a unique, punchy, red-berry intensity.

The fruit too good to let go to the birds, we gathered our family and friends and handpicked the fruit on a baking February morning. Collecting only 155kg from 4 acres of vines, we picked only the best of the best bunches... the ones that had the fullest intensity and flavour. And man, was there flavour!

The grapes were then fermented naturally in an open new French oak barrique, with 24 days on skins to develop soft, silky tannins. We used a combination of whole bunch and whole berry fermentation to bring aroma and flavour to the wine and capture the authentic Heathcote character. Wanting to minimise oak exposure, we aged the wine in Demijohns for 7 months, before bottling in October 2020; this wine was not fined, nor filtered.

Juicy, bright and powerful, this unique single site wine is one of a kind. Soft, silken tannins, it's ripe and punchy, with plum and sweet spice on the mid-palate and a complex savoury finish. With only 75 bottles available, be sure to snap up a bottle before we sell out.

And the label? Well the vineyard, Dead Horse Hill, used to be a tomato plantation before the vines were planted in the early 90s. And so it seemed only fitting that we design a label that reflected the Australian rhyming slang for "tomato sauce"... "dead horse". Artwork by Billie Justice Thomson; print by the crew at Hungry Workshop.

Region: Heathcote

Sub-region: Toolleen

Vineyard: Dead Horse Hill Vineyard; altitude 203m.

Harvest: 27 February 2020; picked by hand.

Ferment: Wild ferment in new French oak.

Aged: One 54L Demijohn.

Bottled: 23 October 2020; by hand.

Bottles: 75

Closure: Gold crown seal

Palate: Juicy, bright and powerful. Earth, plum and sweet spice on the mid-palate with a complex savoury finish.

P • P • P • Classification: Place

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2020 Dead Horse Hill Shiraz

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