HEAD Wines Old Vine Shiraz 2022

I am privileged to work with small parcels of fruit from old, dry-grown, hand-pruned and picked vineyards across the Barossa. We were utterly spoilt for choice in 2022 with many blocks across the Barossa & Eden Valley going into ‘Old Vine’ Shiraz. At Nuriootpa (Planted 1890) we used the De Ruiter vineyard as the base, then Flaxman Valley’s Wilton Hill Block 1 (Planted 1910) and finally a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon from Moculta (Planted 1980) on deep red clay. We do not push the ripeness here and aim for a gentler extraction. Combine this with 20% new barriques (the rest ex-white barriques) for 18 months and the wonderful richness and sweetness of ‘Old Vine’ fruit remains in focus. The 2022 has an extra layer of richness and texture – and will surely blossom when approached by richer protein dishes. Bottled unfined under Stelvin capsule.