The Heathcote Shiraz Story

Once having established Hanging Rock Winery the need for a premium red wine in the portfolio soon turned into a serious quest.

Having decided on Heathcote as the place, and Shiraz as the favoured variety, the Ellis’s challenge was to find the right site ... Download this Adobe PDF (1021Kb) to read the whole Heathcote Shiraz story ...

The 2000 vintage is significant in the history of this wine because it is the first to contain fruit from Heathcote vineyards in addition to our Athol’s Paddock vineyard.

The vineyards contributing to the 2000 vintage are, in order of size of contribution

• Athol ’s Paddock
• Colbinabbin Estate
• Original Mt Camel vineyard
• Joe Marton vineyard
• Merindoc vineyard

Another significant feature of this vintage is the first use of ‘steam-bent ’ American oak barriques rather than the previous ‘fire-bent ’barriques.

The ‘steam-bent’ barriques impart a gentler, smoother oak character to the wine.

The 2001 Heathcote Shiraz is the fifth release from our 'Athols Paddock'vineyard and this vintage includes fruit from the Colbinabbin vineyard and the Marton vineyard. All the fruit is handled separately at every stage of winemaking, right up to the assembly of the final blend. We have absolute control over all components

It continues the high standards of its predecessors, with which we collected two Trophies and forty four Gold Medals.

The 2000 vintage won a Trophy and 8 Gold Medals in International and Australian wine shows during 2002.

In 2001 we had an extremely dry season, however we were saved by 4" of rain in January and so avoided stressed vines and associated lower yields.

The 2001 vintage has already received two 'Very Highly Commended' awards as a barrel sample at the 2002 Ballarat Wine Show ('Very Highly Commended' for a barrel sample is the equivalent of a Gold Medal awarded to a bottled wine).

This is the second vintage to make use of new, 'steam-bent', medium toast, American oak barriques that engender a smoother, subtler oak character in the wine, and with less vanillan influences.
The wine was matured in this oak for eighteen months.

Our Heathcote fruit is always picked on flavour, and in this aspect of the wine we are aiming for consistency. The new oak is subtler, smoother and more integrated, the fruit characters are more prominent.

It is a rich, elegant wine, beautifully balanced and with great cellaring potential. The colour is deep, intense purple/mulberry and the nose exhibits elegant, plum/berry aromas with a gentle oak presence and some mintiness. On the palate it has a silky texture, complexity, delicious plummy berry flavours and a good balance between the fruit, oak and tannin.