Pirathon - 2017 Vintage

2017 produced exceptional wines that exude elegance and poise with incredible length of flavour.

In this vintage Pirathon offers a range of four outstanding Barossa Valley Shiraz.

Pirathon Blue

Pirathon Blue is medium bodied with notes of blueberry, floral, spice and juicy red fruits. Perfectly balanced with soft tannins and subtle oak complexity. A delightful Barossa Shiraz.

Pirathon Silver

Pirathon Silver is the classic and award winning Pirathon Shiraz. Full bodied displaying ripe red with toasty background oak. Plush tannins add weight to this generous, harmonious and flavoursome wine.

Pirathon Black

The Pirathon Black Shiraz is full bodied with wonderfully rich black fruits balanced with classy mocha oak and sublime texture. Finely integrated tannins adds structure to this expressive.

Pirathon Gold

The Pirathon Gold Shiraz is full bodied with intense dark fruit flavours and enticing aromas. It is rich on the palate with solid tannins and cedary oak giving a powerful Barossa Shiraz of the highest calibre.

Growing Season

The 2017 growing season started off well with above average rainfall during the winter and spring months. September saw record rainfalls over double the long term average providing plenty of water reserves leading in to summer. Temperatures during summer were moderate allowing a cooler and longer ripening period. March provided favourable harvesting conditions with little rainfall and above average temperatures allowing for all fruit to be picked at optimum flavour and ripeness.

Vineyard

The grapes were harvested from the low-yielding vineyards of traditional family growers in the north-western Barossa districts of Greenock, Moppa, Belvedere, Koonunga and Ebenezer. Each vineyard adds its own exclusive dimension to Pirathon Shiraz and combined they produce the ultimate blend.

Winemaking

Each vineyard was harvested at optimal maturity across a 6 week period from March 10 to April 25. 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 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.