Pirathon Gold 2016The Pirathon Gold Shiraz was introduced to Pirathon's range in 2016 as a premium reserve wine.
The best grape lots were carefully selected from the 2016 intake and combined with 100% French Oak barrels with no compromise on quality.
The resulting wine provides a palate of bright fruits balanced with chalky tannins which dominate in this classy, highly integrated, harmonious Barossa Shiraz.
The Pirathon Gold Shiraz is for those who want only the very best and cannot settle for anything else. Pirathon Gold provides the prestige best of the pick grapes, carefully handled and fermented in the best quality barrels with a taste and appearance that will astound you and your guests.
Rich and full-bodied. Very generous, powerful. Totally mouth-coating. Bright fruit flavours, licorice. Firm chalky tannins giving longevity as well as nice grip to counter-balance sleek fruits, but importantly polished. Harmonious acid. Very classy, savoury oak, highly integrated. A long lingering finish.
Dark magenta-black in colour
Very intense aromatics. Dark black fruits, plus dried fig. Sweet spice, almost incense-like. Classy cedary oak.
Barossa Valley, South Australia.
One of Australia's oldest
and most premium wine regions, famous for it's Shiraz around the world.
Destemmed and crushed berry
Primary: Select Yeast. Secondary: Wild Malolactic.
Open top fermentation, 7-10 days on skins.
Moppa & Belvidere
The grapes were harvested from the low-yielding vineyards of traditional family growers in the north-western Barossa.
Elevation approximately 300-350m.
100% French Oak
67% New 33% Used.
2 years aged in barrel.
100% Shiraz
The grapes used in Pirathon Gold are grown from traditional Barossa clones first introduced to the region over hundreds of years ago.
200 cases produced
Unfined and unfiltered
5 Lots in February 2016
The best lots selected.
Average yield of 1.75 tonne per acre.
Sugar at harvest 14.4 - 14.8 Baume.
Enjoy now or cellar for 10-20 years
15% Alcohol
Vegan friendly
Vintage 2016 was hot and dry resulting in grapes ripening earlier than average. Winter and Spring rainfall was down by 38% whilst growing season temperatures were up by 3 degrees. Some welcome rain came at the end of January refreshing the vines and giving them good moisture to ripen to maturity. Yields from 2016 are solid and importantly quality is stunning. 2016 is certainly a star vintage with bright intense wines of great flavour intensity and inherent balance.
The grapes were harvested from the low-yielding vineyards of traditional family growers in the north-western Barossa districts of Moppa & Belvidere. Each vineyard adds its own exclusive dimension to Pirathon Shiraz and combined they produce the ultimate blend. The grapes for the 2016 Pirathon Gold were from De Fazio and Hillview vineyards. These two long term partners of Pirathon's are rich with history and produce some of the finest Shiraz in the world.
Each vineyard was harvested at optimum maturity across a two month period from February 12th to April 6th. 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. After 7-10 days on skins the fermented grapes were pressed with a traditional press. The wines were then filled to new and seasoned French oak hogsheads for maturation for 24 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.