FU Barossa Valley Shiraz 2016

Tasting Notes

Deep dark black in colour with crimson hues.

A hedonistic style which needs time to breathe to show its true character. The fruit characters are blackberry and there is white pepper and some seductive spice. Some age is showing and is evident through the characters of leather saddle, coffee, and chocolate. Powerful fruit flavours are evident thanks in large part to the old vine material used.

There’s a blanket of tannin and oak which all work together to provide the backbone. Plum, liqueur, leather, earth, coffee and smoked meat all perform back up roles. A perfect balance between oak and fruit has been achieved and these characters appear to have perfectly melted into one another over time due to the use of high-quality oak and minimal Sulphur use.

The tannin structure is long and velvety with the wine having an incredibly long finish. 

Winemaking

This wine is sourced from a single old vineyard from what we consider one of the finest vineyards in the Barossa Valley.

2016 was one of the standout vintages of the last decade, the ideal vintage, which gave us the benefit of perfectly, ripened fruit. The smooth flow of vintage allowed us to select specific fruit parcels and allowed us to define the wine as much in the vineyard as the winery.

These grapes are brought into the winery and crushed into old vats where the fermentation is initiated by “wild” yeasts found on the grape skins. Careful extraction and short post fermentation maceration is followed by soft pressing. The wine is transferred into brand new oak barrels where the malolactic fermentation is completed before racking and maturation for 36 months in barrels where it stayed with no topping or Sulphur addition. A careful assemblage and barrel selection are followed by minimal filtration and bottling. A wine which will benefit immensely with time in the cellar to settle and develop. It will have a great lifespan of around 15 years plus still.

Source/Region: Barossa Valley
Grape Variety: Shiraz
Cellaring: Drinking well now or will cellar for 15 years
Alcohol Content: 14.5% 

Accolades