Smidge Wines

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Tasting Notes
In the glass this wine is magenta and almost black in colour. There are wonderful and intense aromas of black fruits, with graphite and charry notes. These aromas continue with hints of cloves and aniseed, and a delicate earthy element. The palate is dense and tight showing spicy red fruit, lavender, plums and chocolate, with fine tannins and an enticing meatiness. This wine may throw a harmless crust in the bottle and we recommend decanting before serving.

Cellaring
Smidge recommends drinking this wine within the next 7 to 10 years.

Viticulture
This fruit is sourced from a single vineyard in the Greenock sub-region of the Barossa Valley with a soil profile of deep red clay loam.  The vines from this block have been planted almost 13 years ago, and are beginning to produce the best fruit we’ve seen from it.  In 2008 this vineyard produced approximately 2.5t to the acre, with the fruit being picked before the devasting effects of the March heatwave. 

Vinification & Maturation
Average fermentation time lasted 7 days and was allowed to reach 28^oC, with the total time on skins averaging 12 days before pressing to tank. The blended free run and pressings were then rough racked 24 hours later to oak, which consisted of 20% new French barriques and the balance 2-4 year old French barriques and hogs heads. Like all Smidge reds, malolactic fermentation occurred in barrel and over the 12 months of maturation the wine was cleanly racked twice and then went to bottle without filtration. 

Technical Analysis
Harvested - March 2008
Bottled - April 2009
Alcohol - 15.0%
Discount - 10% on Purchase of a Dozen