N2 Templates Project

Current vintage

2002

Our most celebrated wine, first made in 1994. It has great depth of colour, aroma and flavour, typical of the best wines of the McLaren Vale region. The Reserve has an extraordinary range of flavours with blackberry, blackcurrant, liquorice and dark chocolate. The wine has a rich sweet fruit mid palate and the finish is long. While approachable when young, it is best cellared.

Appearance

Very deep red/back with crimson edges.

Bouquet

The nose offers multiple levels of complexity with sweet blackberry, chocolate, licorice and vanilla evident complemented by savoury well-balanced oak.

Palate

Very rich powerful entry of blackberry with savoury spice, licorice and dark chocolate filling out the mid palate, leading to a long finish balanced by well integrated tannin structure of great depth.

Winemaking

The fruit for the 2002 Reserve Shiraz was primarily sourced from our ‘Willows Block’ at Fox Creek and harvested between 14.2° and 14.8° Baumé. Fermentation on skins was for 8 days with a proportion of the wine (40%) completing fermentation in new American (70%) and French (30%) oak. The wine was matured for 15 months in new and 1 year old American and French oak. During this time the wine was racked 3 times, allowing us to assess the quality of the wine and fine-tune our oak regime.

Technical analysis

Ageing potential

This wine, if cellared correctly, will drink well up to 2015 reflecting the full-bodied structure of the best wines made in the cool summer of 2002. This wine will repay decanting up to 2 hours prior to consumption.

Awards

Gold Medal, International Wine Challenge of Asia 2004
Gold Medal, San Francisco International Wine Show 2005
Gold Medal, Sydney Royal Wine Show 2004
5 Stars (Outstanding) Decanter Top Wines of the Year 2006
Silver Medal, Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2003
Silver Medal, Royal Hobart Wine Show 2003
Silver Medal, Royal Melbourne Wine Show 2003
Silver Medal, Decanter World Wine Awards 2004
Silver Medal, International Wine Challenge 2004
Silver Medal, Royal Melbourne Wine Show 2004
Bronze Medal, San Francisco International Wine Competition 2004
Bronze Medal, National Wine Show (Canberra) 2003
Bronze Medal, McLaren Vale Wine Show 2003
Bronze Medal, Cowra Wine Show 2004
Bronze Medal, Royal Queensland Wine Show 2004
Bronze Medal, Great Australian Shiraz Challenge 2004 (Top 50)
Bronze Medal, Rutherglen Wine Show 2004
Highly Recommended, Winewise Magazine April 2004
Commended, International Wine & Spirit Competition 2004

Viticulturalist

Paul Watts

Winemaker

Dan Hills & Tony Walker

Tasting notes

2002 Reserve Shiraz