Pirathon - 2014 Vintage

The 2014 wines are strong with deep and vibrant colour, excellent fruit definition and solid but integrated tannin structure ensuring longevity for the wines.

In 2014 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

This is the classic and award winning Pirathon Shiraz with the 2014 vintage being no exception.

Growing Season

Vintage 2014 was an excellent year. The wines from 2014 are strong with deep and vibrant colour, excellent fruit definition and solid but integrated tannin structure ensuring longevity for the wines. The 2014 growing season began with slightly above average Winter rainfall however Spring and early Summer were very dry with 40% less rain than normal. Temperatures were also up with the Spring/Summer growing season being an average of 2 degrees C warmer. However, this dry and warm season changed dramatically in mid February with 100mm of rain falling, the wettest February day in 45 years. This slowed the ripening of the grapes considerably and combined with average mild temperatures in March (25.7 degrees C) a steady ripening of the grapes ensued. This ensured good flavour and moderate sugar development 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.