Pirathon - 2012 Vintage
Vintage 2012 was a fantastic year. The wines from 2012 are outstanding and up there with the best wines to come out of the winery.
In 2012 Pirathon offers a range of two outstanding Barossa Valley Shiraz.
Pirathon
Pirathon is the classic and award winning Pirathon Shiraz. Full bodied displaying bright fruit characters contribute to this plush wine. This is an extremely balanced Shiraz with fruit, oak and tannin working together.
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.
Vintage Notes
Growing Season
Vintage 2012 was a fantastic year. The wines from 2012 are outstanding and up there with 2010 and 2002 as the best wines to come out of the winery. Vintage 2012 began with a good growing season of moderate rainfall and normal temperatures. Summer and Autumn were perfect with generally warm sunny days and only a few heat periods but nothing extreme. The weather was generally dry with an occasional shower of rain refreshing the vines. The perfect mid-high 20s weather ensured the grapes ripened steadily and evenly producing outstanding quality.
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.