One Man Band Red Blend.
Elegant with ripe, juicy red and black fruit. Lovely white pepper and sweet, exotic spice on the nose. The entry is intense, with underlying cedar wood, followed by a long savoury, earthy finish with fine grained tannins.
Blend Composition:
Syrah (47%), Petit Verdot (19%), Nebbiolo (16%), Mourvèdre (8%), Cabernet Sauvignon (8%), Viognier (2%)
Winemaking:
Our red wine vinification is very traditional. Hand harvested, before being destemmed and sorted on a vibrating table, the grapes were destemmed and not crushed. Once wild fermentation had started the skin cap was softly punched down 2 times per a day to achieve desired extraction.
Post fermentation the wines underwent extended maceration; the wines were tasted regularly in order to assess the extraction level and when to press-off. Once pressed off, the wines undergo spontaneous malolactic fermentation in barrel where they were aged for 12-16 months, in 500L French oak barrels, of which 25% is new oak.
Vintage Notes:
The season started with a cool June month and average rainfall, followed by the warmest July on record (3 C warmer than the long-term avg.) and well below the long term average rainfall. This resulted in very early budding. The warm July was followed by a cold August and September (both months about 2 C cooler than previous year) with some frost at the start of budding. This led to uneven budding. Strong winds towards the end of October and November resulted in a lengthy and uneven flowering period with reduced crop levels and berry size.
December and January was characterised by cool growing conditions, with January being especially cool. Overall, the growing season was extremely dry. Harvest started on the 4th of March - one of the earliest experienced at Iona. Towards the end of harvest three days of rain increased disease pressure and it made our investment in a state of the art Bucher Oscillys destemmer worth every cent. Sorting was crucial this year and the fruit that remained shows wonderful intensity of fruit concentration. It's tough years like this that makes us better farmers.
Technical Details:
ALCOHOL: 13.3%
RESIDUAL SUGAR: 2.4 g/l
TOTAL ACIDITY: 5.7 g/l
PH: 3.5
What's in the box
1 X 750ml Bottle
