Pirathon - 2009 Vintage
2009 was a brilliant vintage with ideal ripening conditions, great quality and moderate yields.
Vintage Notes
Growing Season
2009 was a brilliant vintage with ideal ripening conditons, great quality and moderate yields. The growing season started cooler than average and was followed by a short heat period before perfect Autumnal weather (mid to high 20s) prevailed for the entire vintage.
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.