Tasting Notes
Aromas of dark fruit, earthy notes, spice and cedar notes, raspberries and dark cherry chocolate. The palate shows dense fruit, cherries, chocolate and spice. It has a tight - long palate, with fruit liqueur flavors and fruit sweetness.

Cellaring
Smidge recommends drinking this wine within the next 5 to 6 years.

Viticulture
The vineyard is located in the western ranges of the Barossa Valley adjacent to Seppltsfield and is planted in red clay / loam soils. The canopy is structured similar to a pseudo vertical shoot design with some sprawling shoots allowing a moderate level of exposure to the sun.. After extensive bunch thinning early in the season and a heatwave in February, the remaining fruit ripeed evenly and was hand picked on the 21st of March.

Vinification & Maturation
The fruit was inoculated, crushed and destemmed into open top fermenter and received a few days cold maceration before fermentation was really allowed to start. The must was pumped over 3 times a day during fermentation which lasted 9 days and was reduced to twice and then once daily until it was pressed. Both the free run and pressings were combined in one tank and were allowed to settle for 24 hours after which it was racked into 2-4 year old French oak for 14 months. The wine went through malolatic formation and was racked twice before bottling.

Technical Analysis
Harvest date: March 2004
Baume: 15.5
Bottling Date: July 2005
Alc/Vol: 16%

Region - Barossa Valley
The Barossa remains one of Australia's most famous wine growing regions and is situated approximately 80kms, or an hour north of Adelaide. (more)

Order - 2004 The Donald Click here to order

“Matt Wenk is a Winemaker who really knows how to handle Zinfandel…”
Max Allen of ‘The Australian (more)