Monolith Vintners Old Vine Barossa Valley Fortified Shiraz 2008

TASTING NOTES

Deep crimson purple with walnut highlights. A monolithic nose featuring ripe dark berries rich and spicy fruitcake, malt toffee and toasted almonds with more subtle notes of butterscotch and rancio. Highly concentrated flavours the palate is all consuming and deliciously extravagant. It has a smooth silky texture with a wonderful touch of spirit on the mid palate, wh ich evolves and moves through to a relatively dry style of finish with a final kick that just lingers with you for what seems like an eternity.

TECHNICAL

The 2008 vintage proved to be a difficult one despite a near perfect growing season we couldn’t predict the record heat wave in March that lasted for 16 days. The dry grown, old vines that yielded this fruit managed to produce wonderful fruit despite small volumes. We hand picked the fruit in April after the extreme heat which for table wines isn’t ideal but for fortified is perfect to ensure the Baume levels were high enough to produce an outstanding fortified wine. The fruit was transported to the winery where it was crushed, destemmed and fermented in a static fermenter with regular pumping over to extract colour and tannin. Fortification, on skins, with 7-yearold wood aged brandy spirit was done at precisely the right time to arrest the fermentation and capture the perfect balance of alcohol and sweetness. Pressing occurred soon after fortification, and this was followed by 80 months maturation in new French barriques, integrating the fruit, the tannin and the spirit before bottling with minimal filtration or fining.

A wonderfully example of big and bold Fortified Barossa Shiraz which will stand the test of time, ensure it is allowed to breathe for at least 3 hours prior to consuming.