2011 Disciples Vine Vale Carignan

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French oak hogshead for 15 months sur lie. Bottles Produced: 384

Grab
A complex, rustic expression of Vine Vale Carignan

Spiel
Each vintage, when a barrel of outstanding quality reveals itself, we reward our Disciples with an offering. Exclusive to our followers, these rare tributes represent our ultimate expressions of ‘kick arse booze’. Enjoy!

Colour
Red brick

Bouquet
A complex floral nose of roses and lavender hints of tar and white pepper

Palate
A rustic palate of sandy tannins support cherry, earthy, savoury flavours and an explosion of herbs and spices

Cellaring
Drink up, but also an 8-10 year proposition.

Vintage
A challenging year followed by the mother of all vintages. No sugar coating. It was tough. An emotional rollercaster. Nevertheless we’ve triumphed and produced some of our most interesting wines to date. A cool wet winter was followed by warmer and drier conditions through October and November which led to strong and healthy shoot growth, but a wet December kicked off our first battle – Downy Mildew. A cool summer with some more frequent thunderstorm weather events in February and March brought our next battle – Botrytis. But the vigilance of our band of grapegrowing brothers meant that we were able to employ more intensive canopy management (shoot thinning/regular trimming) and to selective hand pick, and then hand sort in the winery, to minimize the impact. We love our growers! So for all the talk about the impact of rain, it’s really the cool conditions that define the wines we’ve produced this year. Wines with expressive varietal character, purity and

Vineyard
Wayne’s vineyard is in Vine Vale in the heart of the Barossa – 175m above sea level on sand

Vinification
The fruit was crushed/destemmed and fermented at temperatures ranging from 20- 25°C for 8 days on skins. The ferment was managed by a variety of techniques, including ‘aerative pump overs’ and ‘drain and returns’ which assist in extracting colour, flavour and tannin from the grapes. At the end of fermentation, it was drained/pressed, and transferred to a 4 year old French oak barrique to undergo MLF. Post MLF, sulphur dioxide was added, and the wine matured sur lie for 24 months. This wine was bottled unfiltered in March 2013.