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| St Hallett was originally established by the Lindner family in 1944. As with most wineries in South Australia at the time, it was initially focused on making fortified wines. It wasn’t until the 1970s that they started to make table wines. The St Hallett winery is based in the Barossa, South Australia, and they source all of their fruit from the region.
Whilst the top of the range St Hallett is the Old Block, it is the Blackwell Shiraz which has long been a favourite of mine. It is named in honour of their chief winemaker, Stuart Blackwell, who has been in charge since 1973. The grapes for Blackwell Shiraz come from two particular vineyards in the Western and Northern regions of Barossa. The first is Seppeltsfield where the Shiraz (Syrah) grows on an undulating terrain that was first planted around 1850. The second is the Ebenezer vineyard which was also first established in the 1850s; the vines are between 10 to 20 years old and are planted on brown earth. |
Tasting Note  Flower Day
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| The wine is matured in a combination of one and two year old American oak barrels for 20 months before it is coarse filtered, thus avoiding stripping away too many flavours. This wine is a complete contrast to last week’s wine, Wind Gap Syrah, as this is a much bigger, richer and warmer style of wine.
The nose is crammed full with aromas of black fruits, particularly black cherries. There are also notes of sweet spice, predominantly cinnamon and vanilla. The palate is rich and juicy, with a full-body, supple tannins and a velvety texture. The fruit characters are intense and echo the nose with additional notes of dark chocolate and liquorice. This wine has a remarkably long finish, lingering for up to a minute on the palate.
June 2011 |
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