Pirathon - 2006 Vintage

Vintage Notes

Growing Season

The 2006 growing season was interesting and diverse and can’t be summed up as either cool, hot, wet or dry as it was all of these in one! Spring and early Summer were extremely wet and windy and this was then followed in mid January by the biggest heat wave since the 1940s. Fortunately this heat was early enough in the season to not be detrimental. After this heat, cooler conditions prevailed to the end of Summer. Another warm and dry period in early Autumn helped the grapes ripen and mature good flavours. Cool, wet conditions prevailed late in the season resulting in vibrant fresh fruit flavours being retained and predominating in the grapes. In summary, it was a very good season in the Barossa.

Vineyard

The grapes were harvested from the low-yielding vineyards of traditional family growers in the north-western Barossa districts of Greenock, Moppa, Belvedere, Stonewell, Seppeltsfield, Koonunga and Ebenezer. Each vineyard adds its own exclusive dimension to Pirathon Shiraz and combined they produce the ultimate blend.

Winemaking

Following harvest, each individual lot of grapes was crushed into a separate open top fermenter. During fermentation, hand pump-overs gently extracted colour and flavour from the grapes. The fermented grapes were pressed with a traditional press. The wines were then filled to new and seasoned American, French, Russian and Hungarian oak hogsheads for maturation for eighteen months before each lot of wine was racked from the barrel and carefully blended. The wine was bottled without fining, ensuring the true expression of the vineyards in the bottle.