94 Points - Halliday Wine Companion 2021
93 Points - The Wine Front
Tasting Notes:
The nose leads with smoky notes, forest berries, some small goods, dried herbs with are backed by dark plum. Flavours of blueberry pie, charcuterie are complemented by succulent tannins which draw out nicely.
Winemaking Notes:
Hand-picked on the 14th, 19th and 20th March
Vinification & Elevage: Fermented as 10% whole bunches, 90% as whole berries. The wine is pressed after 2 weeks on skins to French oak for indigenous malolactic conversion, then racked and sulphured and returned to oak for maturation. 10 months on lees in oak, then racked twice
Viticultural Notes:
Established in 1995, Toolangi Vineyards is in the Yarra Valley adjoining the Toolangi State Forest. This is a single site vineyard on fine clay loams which produces grapes wines with distinctive personalities, each wine showing a strong sense of place. This Shiraz is made from low cropped and hand harvested fruit from a selection of rows 1-10 of the top of D-block and A- block, both PT23 clone and both planted 2001.
Optimal conditions for both flowering and fruitset in the vineyards gave well balanced yields with plenty of promise leading into the 2019 harvest. A dry January and February followed culminated in a relatively compressed vintage, though attention to detail in the vineyards gave winemakers wonderfully balanced fruit with concentration of flavour and exceptional natural acidity.