Tasting Notes for Paxton Quandong Farm Shiraz 2021 from the Winery

Quandong Farm Shiraz is a single vineyard wine that aims to highlight the intensity and brightness of fruit grown using biodynamic techniques. Our farming practices are designed to produce wines of intensity, but also with layers of texture, flavour and interest for the consumer. We think this wine exhibits these characteristics and provides both concentration and flavour and a certain delicacy, rather than simple raw power.

Aroma: This is really an olfactory party, there’s so much going on. Bunchy characters like homemade boiled lollies, strawberry shortcakes and lilly pillies meld with smoky speck and brooding dark musk. After some air, touches of Turkish spices hint to the delicate integration of French oak.

Palate: The energy is enlivening as this wine graces the palate, long and undeviating on first taste, it fills out with a little time in the glass. Medium bodied, it feels like a juxtaposition of goats nibbling their way through brambly wild berries and mint and the tension of acrobatic tricks on a high wire. A delicate finish like sinking your toes into the smooth, fine sands of the Whitsundays.

Vintage: 2021 was one of those dream vintages that don’t come along every year; cool, refreshing nights and dreamy, sun-kissed days without any extended stretches of intense heat. After a warmer than usual November there were only four days above 40 degrees. It was mainly dry throughout the ripening season with the odd spattering of just enough rain to keep the grapes beautifully plump, juicy and full of bright fruit flavours and time to dry out in between so disease pressure was low. The gentle undulation between these varying temperatures and perfectly healthy canopies allowed us to really ponder picking times, spending plenty of time out in the vineyard tasting grapes getting the timing of picking just right. The generous harvest has rewarded us with delightfully delicate fruit and varietal characters, with each variety singing its own tune. Natural acids are in perfect balance and the smooth, sensuous tannins completed by an epic energetic vibration that we can’t wait to share with you.

Variety: Shiraz 100%: Organic | Biodynamic

Region: McLaren Vale

Vineyard: Quandong Farm

Colour: Crisp crimson

Drink with: Perfect with duck dishes

Cellaring: This wine can be enjoyed young, however, careful cellaring for 5–20 years will be rewarded

Vinification: The grapes were hand picked and selector harvested at optimum flavour and sugar equilibrium. 40% of the harvest was used as whole bunches while the remainder was delicately destemmed and fermented using 100% indigenous (wild) yeast . The small batch open ferments were carefully plunged and pumped over for 10-15 days to extract colour, flavour and tannin structure. The ferments were pressed to new and mature French oak puncheons, where they were nurtured for 12 months prior to blending and bottling.

Alcohol: 14.0%

Winemaker: Ashleigh Seymour and Kate Goodman

(SKU: PX_QUA_CV)