Description
Vines
These Grenache vines were planted by my Grandfather, Rufus Armein Heidenreich in 1936, in the Vine Vale area of the Barossa Valley. The Grenache was originally planted as bush vines, as was common practice in this era.
This area of vineyard is located along the Eastern edge of the Barossa Valley, which was one of the first areas settled in the 1840’s due to its fertile, deep sandy, loam soils and water-holding capacity, in non-irrigated vineyards. The gully breeze that is prevalent in this area helps keep grapes cool during the hot ripening season, and retains natural acidity and freshness.
Vintage
The 2019 Barossa vintage will be long recognised as a standout for quality but extremely low yielding. This was due to a number of environmental factors, such as late frosts in November and strong winds during flowering. Also, the growing season started out dry and continued that way.
February was slightly cooler than average which was the saving of many vineyards, and small crops. The Grenache was hand picked in the early daylight hours late in March 2019.
Winemaking
The Grenache was harvested in the early hours of the morning in late March 2019. The fruit was crushed and destemmed into an open 4 tonne fermenter.
The fruit was inoculated with yeast, and the cap was gently plunged twice per day during fermentation, to extract colour and flavour without extracting bitter seed tannins.
The alcoholic fermentation took 8 days and then the must was pressed off skins to French Oak hogsheads, with 30% new oak and the remainder oak 2-4 years of age.
