Sanguine D'Orsa Shiraz 2007

Our first wine was already bottled before we discovered our great, great grandfather (Pietro D’Orsa) had planted vines nearby in the late 1800’s. We found six remnant vines and had them DNA tested to determine their origin. One vine remains a mystery so we planted a special vineyard from it. For this ancient survivor it will be a new spring, another youth, a sanguine rebirth. So that’s where our compulsion to make wine came from. It was in the blood all along.

To do justice to this heritage, we’ve kept aside some exceptional barrels of Shiraz to make this wine, an opulent, dark-crimson homage to our grand predecessor.

All batches are destemmed and lightly crushed and then naturally fermented with wild indigenous yeasts in small open fermenters. At 6 to 8 days, a portion of the wine is transferred to new French oak barriques for barrel fermentation. The remaining wine is kept on skins for an average of 12 days. All wine is moved around the cellars by gravity to avoid pump shock. The best batches from each harvest are selected and matured in French Oak barriques (60% new) for 24 months and then left to rest in bottle before release. Incredible depth of colour, Rich, concentrated fruit dominated by blackberry with a hint of blueberry. Now with cellar age comes an intoxicating mix of cedar wood, spice and a hint of aniseed. giving this shiraz real depth and complexity.  Absolutely delicious, powerful structural tannins, lots of air in a decanter before serving. 100% Shiraz