Curator Single Barrel 2021 Shiraz
The Curator Single Barrel is our most limited release wine. It is only selected from obvious stand out barrels and not from every vintage. Each year we mature our wines in predominantly French oak barrels sourced from the best forests. Across this range there are differences in how the wine and the oak characters come together, resulting in barrels with different flavour profiles. After 12 months, we select the finest barrel which is kept separately, where our Single Barrel temporarily finds its home for aging before bottling. This wine was bottled at 18 months of barrel age so as to retain freshness and primary flavours.
Vintage 2021 was a near perfect vintage following good winter rainfall and a cool summer. This specific barrel of Shiraz comes from one of our Greenock vineyards planted in the 1950’s. Handpicked, 10% whole bunches , naturally fermented then basket pressed into our best French oak. The new barrel selected was perfect, beautiful oak that will integrate over time, dark, spicy. Full bodied, dark fruit and spice, amazing powdery tannins and a dark fruited long smooth finish.
Bottled unfined and unfiltered and is Vegan friendly.
94 points Robert Parker Wine Advocate
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94 points – Wine Companion
Deep, saturated magenta crimson in the glass with aromas of satsuma plum and macerated summer berry fruits. Hints of licorice, rum and raisin chocolate, olive tapenade, pan juices, cedar, baking spices, brandied fruits, Christmas mince pies and earth. Full bodied with plum and blackberry jam notes, oak spice and a crème de cassis fruit flow with powdered ironstone tannins and a broody, graphite edge to the thick, rich black fruit on the finish.
94 points - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2021 Single Barrel Shiraz is concentrated and intense on the nose—so much going on! The fruit is dense and black, mostly ascending beyond its oak elevage. There is so much fruit here, and the fruit is so black: black cherry, blood plum, raspberry/blueberry/blackberry, aniseed, inflections of fruit cake spice.... the whole gang is here. It has a gently drying oak finish, which will likely be absorbed in time.
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Vintage 2021 will go down in history as one of the best out of the Barossa Valley in recent years. Shiraz sourced from an 80 year old vineyard in Greenock. The grapes were fermented naturally with 10% whole bunches retained with the rest whole berries, ie they were only destemmed and not crushed. The ferment was long, cool and controlled with the wine being pressed into one new French Oak hogshead (300 lts) where it finished fermenting and went through natural Malolactic Fermentation (MLF).
At 12 months, we decided that this wine would make the grade of our Single Barrel range as it had the structure and definition that this wine style demands. The wine was bottled at 18 months of barrel age so as to retain freshness and primary flavours.
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Greenock Vineyard planted circa in late 1940’s
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Drinking beautifully now to 2040.
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14.5%
