‘Heretic’ 2023
Tasting Notes
More than the sum of its parts, 'Heretic' is a super blend of ‘alternative’ varieties, bringing Iberian flavours and savoury goodness to the wine, with a soupcon of that McLaren Vale classic, Shiraz. A wine for all seasons, 'Heretic' has a cherry blossom nose with dark fruits on the soft, savoury palate. It finishes nice and tight and focused and has a lovely gravelly grainy structure and length.
Gold Medal (96 pts) 2023 Melbourne Wine Awards
Gold Medal (96 Pts) 2023 Australia Alternative Varieties Wine Show
Trophy (Best Red Blend) 2023 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show
Vegan friendly
Vintage
We had a very wet winter (between June and September) and a cool wet spring, which tested the mettle of our in-house viticulturist/ vigneron, AKA Joch. As a result of these trying conditions, vintage started later than in previous years (we picked Chardonnay on the 15th February in #v2023) and we had much smaller volumes than in 2022 or 2021. We had a few warm days in January and February and picked the whites quite quickly, then about 10mm of rain in early March which settled the dust and stopped picking for a little while. Despite the smaller vintage, the quality of grapes was excellent across both red and white varieties.
Winemaking
We pick and ferment the 4 varieties separately so they can develop their own varietal characters before they get blended prior to a little bit of oak maturation and bottling. Joch picks on sugar and flavour ripeness, which of course varies with all varieties.
Other Vintages
Technical Details
Vineyards: Dutchmans and Dentons
Picking Date: Touriga April 4 2023, Mataro April 4 2023, Graciano 23 March 2023, Shiraz 29 March 2023
Alc/Vol: 14.0%
Bottling Date: 24 August 2023