2014 Stevens Road Graciano

Graciano (100%)

2014

Margaret River

The 2014 vintage was built on a sound foundation of sub-soil moisture with good above average rainfall throughout the Winter of 2013. The rainfall ceased almost completely from the end of November through to the end of March providing ideal growing conditions. Abundant Marri blossom leading up to, and during, harvest kept bird pressure very low, and yields were average for most varieties. In summary, 2014 was a truly outstanding season in Margaret River. All of the fruit for this traditional Spanish variety is grown on our mature Stevens Road vineyard. The tiny block is only 0.6 hectare in size, and as such this is truly a limited release with only 9 barrels produced in 2014.

Deep red with garnet hues.

Intriguing, with aromas of blackberries, plums and dark Morello cherries shadowed by a lovely savoury thread of graphite, soy and five-spice in the background.

A perfect pairing with game food, the 2014 Xanadu Graciano will gain further complexity with bottle maturation and will certainly reward with medium term cellaring.

13.5%

750ml

3.69

The fruit was crushed, destemmed and chilled followed by a cold soak for 4 days at 5-10°C, extracting colour structure without excessive tannins the thick Graciano skins have to offer. After warming, the must was inoculated with a selected yeast strain and fermented in small open fermenters for 5 days before pressing at about 3 Baume and finishing fermentation and MLF in oak. No new oak was used in order to emphasize the rustic, savoury fruit characteristics, however the wine enjoyed a 14 month maturation period in the mainly one and two year old French oak barriques.