The Piceous Lodestar Single Vineyard Shiraz 2012

THE PICEOUS LODES
ST
TA R
Single Vineyard Shiraz 2012
McLaren Vale, Shiraz (100%)
The Name
The Characteris
Characteristics
tics
A lodestar is something on which your
attention is fixed, and the piceous, pitch
black nature of this wine is certain to keep
your focus until the bottle is finished.
First impressions are of a loud concoction
of violets, fennel, chocolate, plums and
earth. The palate is big and concentrated,
offering up decadent amounts of cocoa,
liquorice and soil which gently surrender to
finer elements of violets and pepper as the
palate progresses. Firm emery-like tannins
add infinite presence and power. A generous
amount of time in your decanter or even
more so in your cellar, will ensure that all of
the aforementioned fruit characters will be
exposed, tempering the sheer weight of
tannin.
The Vintag
Vintagee
A wet summer and winter in 2011 set the
vines up perfectly for the 2012 vintage.
Spring and summer were drier than normal,
resulting in lower fruit yields. A small heat
burst just prior to veraison assured a solid
colour change, small berries and
pronounced tannins in the grapes. The red
wines from this vintage are black, solid and
quite structured, the biggest year for some
time; not oily but definitely gutsy.
The Winemaking
Small batches of grapes are crushed gently
and then transferred to five tonne headed
down open fermenters. These batches
remain separate until final blending. Foot
treading is undertaken two thirds of the way
through fermentation. The wine is then
basket pressed and transferred to a mixture
of new and used French and old American
oak barriques to complete fermentation.
The barrel ferments are aged on lees, there
is no racking until final blending and no
fining or filtration.
Harvest dates
Residual sugar
pH
Chief Winemaker
29 F
February
ebruary
1.5
3.48
Ches
Chester
ter Osborn
Alcohol
Titratable acid
Oak maturation
Senior Winemaker
15
15.1%
.1%
7.5
20 months
Jack W
Walton
alton
O S B O R N R O A D / P O B O X 1 9 5 M C L A R E N VA L E S O U T H A U S T R A L I A 5 1 7 1
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