2023 Swinney Mourvèdre
Ray Jordan, www.rayjordanwine.com.au, August 2024
“Yet another remarkable Rhone variety expressed perfectly from Frankland River. The aim appears to have been to present this as true a reflection of the vineyard as possible. It’s from bush vines and then a combination of whole bunches to build structure, wild fermentation to build texture and then finishing off for 11 months on lees in older French oak. It all contributes to a beautifully expressive wine capturing the distinctive ferrous regionality and the soft supple fruit of the variety with a little dried herb and sage bush lift.” 95 points
Wine Specs
Vintage
2023
Varietal
Mourvedre
Appellation
Frankland River
Harvest Date
17th April 2022
Acid
5.63
pH
3.52
Bottling Date
February 2024
Residual Sugar
0.4 g/L
Alcohol %
13.7
Wine Profile
Tasting Notes
Vibrant magenta
Perfumed complex and intriguing with blood pudding, fresh plums and hints of white pepper
Wonderfully medium bodies with bags of complexity. Flavours include pomegranate molasses, wild berries Chinese five spice framed by a lattice of fine tannins fastened together by rusty nails.
Vineyard Notes
Mourvèdre from dry-grown bush vines on the gravelly-loam soils of our Swinney Wilson’s Pool vineyard.
Careful canopy management, fruit thinning and selective hand harvesting over multiple passes, all ensured we achieved as close to perfect fruit as possible.
Production Notes
The fruit was hand picked in a single day when flavour and tannin maturity were optimum. It was then destemmed, berry sorted and emptied to a single stainless steel fermenter via gravity.
We incorporated 30% whole bunches and wild fermentation to build structure and texture as well as highlight the distinctive ferrous qualities, fine structure and wild spice of Mourvèdre. The wine spent 11 days on skins prior to being pressed directly to fine-grained, large-format, seasoned French oak, and was aged on lees for 11 months prior to bottling.
The wine was made with minimum effective Sulphites, is unfined and minimally filtered.
Other Notes
100% Mourvèdre