I find it fascinating. We grow Shiraz in different parts of the vineyard, ferment the parcels the same way and mature them in the same barrels and they end up tasting different. It’s the wonder of ‘terroir’, each distinct piece of landscape produces flavours unique to itself.
The top half of our Block One is a case in point. The Shiraz we grow here tastes different to our other blocks, darker somehow, with perhaps the most intensely floral aromas of all our Shiraz parcels. Geography and geology undoubtedly have an influence.
The top half of Block One slopes directly to the north-east. The sun hits the slope from the moment it rises, warming the ground through the day but avoiding the direct impact of the fiercer sun of the late afternoon.
There is plenty going on below the surface as well: a high proportion of the red clay known as parna, thought to be the result of wind-storms, over many millennia in a previous, more arid geological age, hoovering up red soil from western New South Wales and dropping it here on top of the ancient volcanic rock that was ever so slowly decomposing into soil.
Taste the Clonakilla Syrah and you taste a very particular landscape.
We make the wine differently too. 100% whole Shiraz berries, carefully destemmed and never pumped, fermented by their own natural yeasts and given a full month macerating on skins before being pressed and run into 500L puncheons for up to two years before bottling.
And then there is the personality of the vintage. The 2022 Syrah is about a warm site in a cool year, the second in a series of three damp La Nina years where every ray of sun was treasured.
Only two puncheons (1300 bottles) made.
Tim Kirk
Three bottles maximum per customer.
