Heathcote Shiraz Reserve 2004 

Heathcote Wine Region, in Central Victoria, has a great reputation as a great place to grow Shiraz. The region features a deep strip of rare, red Cambrian soil with excellent moisture retention characteristics, that virtually eliminates the need for irrigation. It is this red soil that gives Heathcote Shiraz its distinctive character. The combination of low rainfall, hot summers and the red Cambrian soil creates a challenging environment in which the Shiraz vines thrive, albeit producing low yields and small berries with intense flavours. One of the impressive features of these wines is their ability to age gracefully. The Hanging Rock Winery Heathcote Shiraz is testament to this. These wines are designed to age, the main focus in the winemaking onset is based around structure of tannin and acid. This along with great strength in fruit and oak stands the wine in great stead for many years to come. It is for this reason that we have matured this wine on your behalf.
In wine producers’ parlance ‘Reserve’ typically means a quantity of wine set aside for special or additional treatment at the hands of the winemaking team. This extra time/effort/cost is, obviously enough, reserved for batches of wine of such quality that the investment of resources is justified.

2004 was a cooler year in the context of a long hard drought. This meant that we were able to crop the vineyard very low because we could, not because we had to. As a result, the wine is lower in alcohol than what we have become accustomed to in recent years, meaning that it should last even longer than its predecessors. The 2004 Heathcote Shiraz is the ninth release from our ‘Athols Paddock’ vineyard and the fifth release under the Heathcote Shiraz Reserve black label.

All the fruit for this wine is sourced from our own Athols Paddock vineyard. Our Heathcote fruit is always picked on flavour, and in this aspect of the wine we are aiming for consistency. This is the fifth 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. 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.

$105.00 ea

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