Hill&Dale Shiraz 2014

ageing : 

Highly drinkable in its youth, the wine should gain in complexity to an age of three to five years.

Stellenzicht's Hill&Dale label offers a range of accessibly-styled wines with a New World character for international appeal, created by award-winning winemaker Guy Webber.
Grapes for the Hill&Dale wines are selected from vineyards within the Stellenbosch region. Extensive vineyard management programmes are in place for each of the vineyards from which the fruit is selected. All aspects of the process are strictly governed so as to comply with not only the standards set for the Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) system, but also with the quality standards set for HACCP and the BRC (British Retail Consortium).
The name for the range was derived from Stellenzicht's Hillandale farm, located just outside the town of Stellenbosch. The logo on the label depicts an oak tree leaf, synonymous with the historic university town.

The vineyards, planted between 1997 and 2005, are situated on gentle slopes facing north and north-east at altitudes of between 120m and 260m above sea level in marginal soils of decomposed granite and Table Mountain sandstone. The vines are all grafted onto nematode-resistant rootstocks and trellised on five-wire fence systems. The 2014 vintage will go down in history as having been one of the largest vintages ever for the Stellenbosch region. Beautifully-cold and wet winter months and an above-average annual rainfall resulted in almost perfect growing conditions for the vines and this resulted in an overall yield of 11,9 tonnes per hectare.

The grapes were harvested between 20 March and 7 April 2014 at an average of 24.1° Balling.

After destalking and crushing, the mash was fermented in horizontal stainless steel tanks at between 22o and 26°C before being transferred to a combination of oak barrels and vats where the wine matured for 12 months. A total of 2 292 cases of 6 was bottled on 19 October 2015.