Luna Blue Rock Syrah 2019

Winter came late with August and September cold and wet. Jack Frost paid a visit with acatastrophic event occurring late spring resulting in heavy losses across the region. Wewere not spared, Eclipse vineyard was struck across the blocks closest to the terraceedge, losses estimated around 30%. High rainfall returned in November negativelyimpacting on the flowering stage, reducing crop levels significantly and makingmachinery work extremely difficult. To put it mildly; a highly challenging spring. Summer was hot and relatively dry. Harvest was earlier than usual with perfect weatherfor picking. In the end excellent quality fruit was harvested albeit in small quantities.

Hand harvested at Blue Rock Vineyard on the 21st of April from Highfold B block, thesteepest slope on this elevated North facing vineyard. Planted in 1997. All bunches were de-stemmed directly into a three ton open topped fermenter. Everyeffort was made to preserve as much “whole berry” as possible. This, along with the useof cooling helps to ensure a slow onset of full fermentation allowing the native non–saccharomyces yeasts time to perform an initial ferment before the stronger, moredominant native saccharomyces yeast strains take over and complete full alcoholicfermentation. We grow a few rows of Viognier at Blue Rock which is harvested at thesame time as the Syrah. Once the juice is pressed off the Viognier skins are added to theSyrah ferment. Total maceration time for this vintage was between 20 – 30 days beforegentle pressing. All press fractions are included in the final blend. Once the wine had settled in tank for three or four days it was transferred to French oakpuncheons for maturation. Malolactic fermentation completed naturally during the winterof 2020. In total the wine spent 12 months in barrel. New oak in the finished wine isaround 20%. The only additions were sulphur dioxide post malo followed by a small topup prior to bottling. Bottled Unfined and Unfiltered.

Oak maturation for 12 months.