Tokara Reserve Collection Syrah 2015

ageing : Best drunk before 2023.

The average yield is around 10 t/ha. The grapes were hand- picked on the 17th and 20th of February. The grapes are picked at optimum flavour and phenolic ripeness with sugars of between 23.5 to 24.5 brix and acidities around 6.0 g/l.

The grapes are hand picked and loaded into a cold store where they are chilled down to approximately 6 degrees Celsius. 25% of the grapes are first loaded whole bunch into the tank. The remainder of the grapes were de-stemmed and crushed directly into tanks for fermentation without the use of pumps. There is a period of cold maceration for up to five days before the fermentation starts spontaneously (without the use of selected yeast strains). The fermentation took place in wooden upright (foudre) fermenters. Pump-overs, délastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until fermentation was completed. The tanks were given maceration post fermentation if the quality and tannin profile of the wine warranted it. The wine was put to barrel for malolactic fermentation after which it were racked, sulphured and put back to barrel for a further maturation. The wine spent a total of 20 months in 27% new French oak demi muid barrels and the rest being older French barrels. There are minimal rackings during maturation. The wine matures on the gross lees for around 10 months after which it is racked at the time of blending. The wine is then matured for a further 12 months (total of 22 months) before being racked again just before bottling. The wine was bottled unfiltered and without fining in January 2017. 4 250 bottles were produced.