This was made by Colin Sheppard at Murray St vineyards in Greenock. The Shiraz is Estate grown and is the first wine made from our own 55+ year old vines which yeilded 1 tonne to the acre. The Shiraz is matured in seasoned & new French oak for 24 months. The wine is unfiltered and unfined and benefits from decanting.
Tasting Notes - Impenetrably dark with a purple rim that almost stains the glass. There’s fruit and spice galore with dark chocolate and iron stone, a dash of oak and so much more. Great complexity. This is truly a baby and will continue to improve over the next 15 years. Just don’t forget to decant it
After visiting the Barossa for 10 years and working vintage with Andrew Seppelt at Murray Street Vineyards in Greenock, the decision to make the move from Melbourne, where Colin was working as a builder, was made. We were lucky enough to find a small old vineyard overlooking Flaxmans Valley. A proven Shiraz and Riesling area with names like Three Rivers, Pewsey Vale and Heggies as neighbours we knew the vineyard had real potential. The property consists of 2 ½ acres of 45+ year old Riesling, ½ acre of 45+ year old Semillon and 2 acres of 55+ year old Shiraz.
It is our belief that great wines are made in the vineyard. To that end all our vines are dry grown, hand pruned and hand picked. We keep our yields low about 1 ½ tonnes to the acre and basically treat the vineyard as our garden, right down to mowing our midrows with a ride-on mower to help prevent soil compaction. We also buy a small amount of Shiraz and Cabernet from vineyards with similar goals as us. We select individual rows which we believe best suit our needs and this fruit is used for our Shiraz Cabernet blend (60% Shiraz – 40% cabernet) which is called "The Stranger" as the fruit isn’t from our vineyard.
Colin works vintage for Murray St Vineyards in Greenock during which time he also makes all the Flaxman wines. The red wines are made in a traditional style, open fermenters, piggage and basket pressing and the whites are whole bunch pressed; the Semillon has the cordons cut approx 3 weeks prior to picking.
