Pirathon - 2011 Vintage
In 2011 the cool weather resulted in great natural acidity and fresh vibrant flavours in the grapes, with wines more elegant than usual and displaying plenty of florals and spice.
In 2011 Pirathon offers a range of two outstanding Barossa Valley Shiraz
Bluemark
This bold Barossa Shiraz has an inviting bouquet with aromas of ripe plum, Christmas cake, fruit compote and chocolate oak. The full-bodied palate is rich and intense with an abundance of flavour and a deep colour.
Pirathon
Pirathon is the classic and award winning Pirathon Shiraz. Full bodied displaying dark fruit characters contribute to this layered wine. This is an extremely balanced Shiraz with fruit, oak and tannin working together.
Vintage Notes
Growing Season
Vintage 2011 was the wettest growing season the Barossa has experienced for decades, with double the normal rainfall. It was also much cooler too, resulting in a longer ripening process and vintage being about 3 weeks later than normal. However, once vintage began in mid March, April was dry and warm with fantastic ripening conditions to give a perfect finish to the vintage. The cool weather has resulted in great natural acidity and fresh vibrant flavours in the grapes, with wines more elegant than usual and displaying plenty of florals and spice.
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.