2022 'Moyston Hills' Grampians Syrah
Our 2nd Release of our Moyston Hills Syrah.
Back in 2004 when The Story began, Moyston Hills was one of the first vineyards to supply grapes for our Grampians Syrah. After only two vintages a larger winery saw the quality on offer and contracted the entire vineyard. Fast forward 17 years and the wheel has turned back in our favour and we were offered the option to lease it ourselves. We jumped at the opportunity and it is now our first fully self-farmed site. We are taking it back to its organic beginnings and pushing for the finest quality possible to deliver both a unique single vineyard Syrah and also some very cool climate Grenache and Mourvedre for our ‘Super G’ wine.
Moyston Hills is in the cooler, southern Grampians and is planted to the old St. Ethel clone of Syrah on reddish brown clay loams with significant amounts of quartz. The wines tend to exhibit bright, peppery, pure, lighter weighted syrah with savoury tannins. It is a great honour for us to be able to farm this vineyard and push it to greater heights. (INCLUDE OR EXCLUDE FOR LENGTH)
The 2022 Moyston Hills Vineyard Syrah is from another cooler season that avoided heat spikes and luckily avoided late season rains. Disease pressure was minimal and crops were lower than in 2021, which should have sped things up, but ripening seemed painfully slow, with sugars stalling in the high 11s and low 12s for most of march until a beautiful stretch of 30 degree days right at the end of the month which pushed us over the line.
Harvest was 31st March and 7th April for the two blocks, and flavours were beautiful along with ample natural acidity, and tiny berries. The bottom block was fermented with 50% whole bunches in open wooden fermenters, pumped over only as needed and left on skins for four weeks. The top block was destemmed and fermented in stainless. Elevage was in a mixture of old french puncheons and 3000lt foudre, for 11 months. A little less pepper than 2021, a little more red fruit than black, but beautiful savoury long tannins, and light, pure red berry flavours. The site is beginning to show signs of a truly unique and lovely terroir, as we put more effort into the viticulture and soil management.
