2006 The Twenty-eight Road

© Rolf Heinman

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Harvest Dates:
15 March – 10 April
Oak Maturation:
Ave. 12 Months in New 1, 2 & 3 y.o American & French Oak Barriques
Alcohol by Vol:
14.5%
Glucose + Fructose:
0.6 g/L
Titratable Acid:
6.9 g/L
pH:
3.44
Bottling Date:
13 April 2007
Chief Winemaker:
Chester d’Arenberg Osborn
Senior Winemaker:
Jack Walton

Other Vintages

"A great Mourvèdre This is the wine of a winery on song. It’s pure, warm, interesting, full of flavour and yet structured and savoury too. A Mourvèdre with the lot, please. It taste of tar, violets, orange blossom, kirsch and boysenberries. It’s a boomer. A tannin structure to die for. 95 POINTS"

The naming of this wine was simple. The majority of our Mourvèdre greats come from a small 3.6 acre plot planted in 1920 alongside The Twentyeight Road which is our border to the East.
Mourvèdre grown in the south of France often makes unforgiving tannic wine. The characters of Mourvèdre are violets, ripe fruits, dried herbs and iodine.
At its best, it is wildly seductive with a length of fruit hard to achieve in most other varieties. Persistent, drying, grainy tannins prevails, somewhat like a Cabernet Sauvignon, with more exotic fruit characters remaining.

Once again a very youthful, dark wine in appearance with the aroma dominated with a spiced dark mix of plums, mulberries and cherries with noticeable flowery and earthy/molasses notes developing. As the wine opens up, notes of lavender, fennel seeds, white pepper, celeriac and freshly-dug beetroot characters emerge. There is an underlying wild strawberry character which adds further complexity to the wine’s aroma.

The palate has a soft, rich, polished entry with plenty of concentration and power. The fruit weight and juicy length of flavour is excellent and wonderfully balanced with acidity and long firm tannins. Violet, cranberry, dark cherry and prune notes mix well with edges of dried herbs and some nutty, vanillin oak adding further definition and focus.

Mourvèdre, produced in the right hands, is a big, plush wine; young or old. With time this wine is expected to develop characters that are more flowery and red-fruit/wild game dominated with a mix of exotic spices and pepper notes with iodine-mineral edges along with the expected dried-herb notes which are typical of this variety.

Vintage 2006 started early and finished early. Overall quality was excellent for whites and reds and in particular,  Mourv&#232dre. Their flavours developed at lower than normal beaume giving complexity and depth to the flavour profile.

A dry winter followed by heavy rains in spring resulted in vines with healthy and balanced canopies on most soils. A mild, early summer leading into a warmer period during veraison stopped vegetative growth allowing vines to channel energy into the fruit. A cooler period that occurred after veraison was a slight concern as Mourvèdre really requires warm conditions to fully develop its colour, concentrated flavour profile and richness. Luckily, the warmth returned in early March which instantly increased the Baumes without diluting the levels of natural acidity.

Each batch of fruit received was gently crushed in our Demoisy open-mouthed, rubber-toothed crusher so as many berries as possible remained whole. They were then transferred to open fermenters were the must of seeds and skins were permanently submerged beneath the free run juice. The must received no plunging or pumping over while fermentation occurred. After the primary fermentation traditional foot-treading took place prior to basket-pressing. The combined free run and pressing components were then transferred to barrel to complete fermentation.