Levantine Hill Optume Shiraz

Sourced from six premium Yarra Valley sites, this wine embodies the region’s cool-climate character and typicity in a complete, unified expression. Aromatically brooding yet refined, it layers red and black fruits with savoury spice, loganberry, cranberry, plum compote, white pepper, clove, black lime and porcini broth. The palate is juicy and slow-building, with elegance balanced by density, and a long finish framed by finely pixelated tannins. Decanting is recommended when young.

Winemaker's notes: 'he 2021 vintage provided prime conditions to fashion the fourth installment of our Optume Shiraz. Grapes were sourced from select premium sites located across the Yarra Valley with the express intention of creating a classic cool-climate Shiraz of exceptional regional character and typicity. This assemblage of six individual sites combines their intrinsic strengths and expressions to deliver the optimum, a complete and superlative wine, greater than the sum of its parts.
Marrying density with finesse and restraint, this broodingly aromatic and refined Shiraz opens with a complex intensity, walking a tightrope between red and black fruits, loganberry, cranberry, plum compote, white pepper, clove, black limes, aniseed, olive tapenade, porcini broth, lucerne hay and bay leaf. The juicy slow-building palate delivers a graceful presence pushing through to a long echo of flavour and finely pixelated tannin. A core of black fruits, blueberry and granite is wound tight and integrated so that no one element stands above the others.

Wine making:  Eight individual parcels were hand-picked over an eighteen day span from four clones drawn from six blocks allowing for ideal ripening across four specifically selected Yarra Valley vineyards. All fruit was hand-sorted and destemmed or crushed to small open vats. Stalks were added back judiciously to select parcels for additional aroma, complexity and sweep of tannin on the finish. Natural fermentation was allowed to be initiated prior to inoculation with a specific varietally-enhancing yeast strain. Vats were hand-plunged once per day during fermentation for gentle extraction and integration of tannin. Cuvaison length
ranged from three to four weeks on skins.

This wine is suitable for vegans. 

Rated 98 points by The Real Review, the 2021 Optume Shiraz stands as the highest-rated Shiraz in the Yarra Valley.

Cellaring: 15+ years
Harvest date: 22, 31 March; 1, 8 & 9 April 2021
Production volume: 1788 bottles
Analysis: Oak treatment - 100% matured in French oak 

700ml bottle
13.0 alc./vol.