The Ironstone Pressings Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvèdre 2014

This wine is extremely alluring. The intriguing nose is at once both fresh and complex. Blood orange, black cherry, and dark fruits leap out of the glass. Behind them lurk complex notes of sooty earth, game, and charcuterie. Baking spices make themselves known and there is a ferrous-like aroma of fresh blood which flows through onto the palate. Here the wine starts building layers of flavour. Initially red berries, brooding mulberry, and plummy sweet fruit flood the tongue. This is followed with finely balanced, savoury mid-palate weight, accentuated by spicy minerality. A very subtle hint of lightly toasted oak is supported and carried by lively fine tannins on the vibrant and lingering finish.

Small batches of grapes are gently crushed and then transferred to five tonne headed down open fermenters. These batches remain separate until final blending. Foot treading is undertaken two thirds of the way through fermentation. The wine is then basket pressed and transferred to a mixture of new and used French oak barriques to complete fermentation. The barrel ferments are aged on lees, there is no racking until final blending and no fining or filtration.