Secret Deals - Dark Red

This full-bodied wine boasts a velvety texture that caresses the palate, releasing a symphony ripe blackberries, decadent dark chocolates, hints of liquorice, and a subtle embrace of warming spice. Silky, velvety tannins add to its allure, while the wine's impressive depth leaves a lasting impression, with a medium to long finish that echoes with the essence of blackberry, creamy milk chocolate, and an alluring whisper of spice. Matured in oak barrels, ...

Batches of fruit are selected from two premium high altitude Adelaide Hills vineyards at Carey Gully and Piccadilly with each separately vinified. Both are cane pruned and on VSP trellis. Produced in small batches, all cold soaked and hand plunged in open fermenters. To create complexity and lift the D4V2 Pinot Noir Clone from Lenswood was vinified using a percentage of whole bunches while the MV6 and 115 clones from Piccadilly were destemmed and ferm...

The Cabernet Sauvignon fruit is sourced from Watervale and the Malbec fruit is sourced from Lodge Hill. Malbec, of course, has a long history in the Clare and plays the Shiraz role (from the quintessential Australian blend) in filling out the Cabernet midpalate; all black fruit and dried herbs, savoury and well balanced. Focusing on the label of wine can often mean there’s not enough going on in the bottle. But not in this case. The wine delivers a f...

The Shiraz fruit was hand picked from 80 year old vines, gently destemmed & cold soaked on skins for 14 days, fermented slowly for a further 14 days. Giving time to allow slow extraction of colour & silky tannins. This extra time allows the wine to develop great depth of flavour & palate structure. The ferment is slowly pressed straight into a mixture of French & American oak barrels. The magic happens over the next 24 months where the wine will develop...

Parcels for the 2020 Shiraz were destemmed and crushed into a mix of 8 tonne and 2 tonne open fermenters, with twice daily pump overs throughout ferment. Temperatures were kept cool, between 20 and 24ºC to extract the tannin, colour and flavour very softly. Once pressed, these parcels were transferred to French and American oak hogshead barrels for 16 months maturation and natural malolactic fermentation. The final blend was put together from 15% new Fr...

Following the traditional Appassimento technique, the fruit was handpicked at 13.4Ëš Baume and placed onto 10kg drying crates. The grapes were then transferred to our temperature and humidity controlled storage shed to dry for 25 days. This resulted in a 30% loss in bunch weight, concentrating aromas and flavours and softening tannins. Once sufficiently dried and concentrated, the fruit was destemmed and crushed into an open top fermenter and pumped over...

Fine-boned structure through impeccably nuanced, incredibly fine-grained savoury tannins. A tapestry of graphite textures is tightly wound, guided by a persistent mineral acidity that imparts enduring intensity. White pepper, cedar, and allspice notes, culminating in a beautifully linear finish that showcases the wine's refined and enduring character.

ACCOLADES; 97 Points, Sam Kim 96 Points, Ken Gargett (Winepilot.com) Drawing on Shiraz plantings from the 1950s this is a small batch wine (release is about 600 dozen) made to honour some of Australia's older Shiraz traditions bowing only slightly to modern trends. It is neither an over oaked jammy bruiser nor a modern midweight perfumed delicacy … rather it endeavours well to combine the best bits of both oeuvres. From the 1970s and 80s comes rela...