Wakefield Jaraman Shiraz Clare and McLaren Valley 2016

Collaboration is essential. Grab a buddy and their strengths can fill in your weaknesses and vice versa. Consider the Avengers, the Hulk can't fly so he teams up with Iron Man who can, Iron Man can't berserker all over a city so the partnership is mutually beneficial. Why Hawkeye is there is another matter. They have an actual god but they need some Legolas knock-off with exploding arrows? Come on!
Wakefield understood this when making Jaraman Shiraz, harvesting grapes from two premium but differing vineyard sites. Just like the Avengers, when these grapes combine they are made stronger than the sum of their parts: the luscious elegance of the Clare Valley fruit marries superbly with the slightly peppery fruit from McLaren Vale. The result is a wine with lifted aromas of red berry and cherry fruit along with subtle black olive and spice - that's collaboration for you!

"Now Hawkeye, make yourself useful and grab us another bottle of Shiraz!"

Wakefield is a third-generation family wine business and was founded in 1969 by Bill Taylor who was inspired by his love for the red wines of Bordeaux’s Medoc region. He was drawn to South Australia’s Clare Valley where his first 178-hectare vineyard was planted on the banks of the Wakefield River close to the village of Auburn. The vineyard was carefully chosen to benefit from red-brown loam over limestone soils (also known as Terra Rossa) and the Clare Valley’s cool climate.
Today Wakefield is headed up by Mitchell Taylor whose philosophy blends an ‘old world’ estate mind set with ‘new world’ winemaking innovation; coupled with an almost fanatical attention to detail and obsession with quality. This results in wines of tremendous quality and style that are made with respect for the company’s family heritage.
The grapes for this wine were gently de-stemmed and transferred to small static stainless-steel fermenters. Half of the grapes were cold soaked at 6 degrees C for 5 days to deliver increased fruit expression. The fruit was then fermented at a constant warm temperature using a Shiraz-specific yeast isolate. Gentle mixing using inert gas occurred 2 – 3 times over the course of the day. The wine was then gently pressed to a mixture of American oak hogshead and barrique barrels (30% 1 year old, 70% 2 – 3-year-old) for secondary, malo-lactic fermentation. Post MLF, the wine was transferred back to barrel for maturation before being fined, filtered and bottled.