Tasting Notes

Deep opaque red to black in colour with vivid purple hues. Complex bouquet featuring alluring dark chocolate, forest fruits and fleshy plum with underlying earthy nuances, which gives the immediate impact of a soft, well structured wine. The palate is voluptuous with a real rich velvety texture expected in top quality Barossa reds from an outstanding vintage. The mid palate is an assortment of Christmas pudding, black olives, freshly cut plum, oak and earth. A true reflection of Barossa Shiraz from a great vintage. It finishes with some classically fine Cabernet tannins, which linger and draw you into this seamless classic Australian blend.

Winemaking

The fruit for this blend was sourced from two vineyards: one old vineyard in the Marananga and the other from the Seppeltsfield region just up the road in the Barossa Valley. Both vineyards were severely pruned and as a result of this and minimal water they produced just one and a half one to the acre. The grapes were all hand picked and a small selection from the most western edge of the Shiraz block along with a small selection from the dead centre of the Cabernet block were isolated by the winemaker as they had such outstanding quality. The grapes were transported to the winery in the early hours of the morning to avoid the summer heat where they were sorted then de-stemmed and crushed before being co-fermented in large wooden vats after extreme cold maceration. The wine had their malolactic in new French oak, and is thereafter in the same oak although a small parcel went into two new French barrels for aging. The best barrels were then selected after 24 months in oak to be used in the final blend and bottled with minimal filtration. In the winery the final barrels used were isolated from all other wines and we considered them to be in exile, hence the name was born.

Region Barossa Valley
Cellaring Drinking well now or can be cellared for the next two decades
Alcohol 14%

Accolades