Single Vineyard Gnadenfrei North Shiraz 2022
$95.00
Elevate your senses with the Gnadenfrei North Shiraz 2022. This organic and vegan-friendly wine showcases a semi-translucent crimson colour and a bouquet bursting with exotic spices, cardamom, clove, and hints of dried herbs and violets. On the palate, enjoy a precise, almost electric structure with vivid forest fruit flavours interlaced with floral and herbaceous notes. Aged in concrete eggs for 15 months, in our underground cellar, this Shiraz offers a long, velvety finish. Best enjoyed decanted in its youth or cellared for a decade.
Single Vineyard Gnadenfrei North Shiraz 2022
Before this place was called Marananga, it was Gnadenfrei. The German settlers who planted the Western Ridge in the 1840s named it after their home in Silesia. It translates as freed by grace. The name changed in 1918. The place never did. The Gnadenfrei North vineyard sits at the highest point of the Western Ridge, on some of the oldest soils in the Barossa. Quartz and sandy loam over deep deposits of clay. That clay holds winter rain long into the season, so the vines grow the way vines should: slowly, deeply, without heavy irrigation. Some places need help to grow great fruit. This one doesn't.
The fruit comes off Gnadenfrei North by hand, at sunrise, in the first days of April. Three quarters of it goes into concrete fermenters as whole bunches. The rest is crushed over the top. Five days of cold fermentation. Gentle cap management. Then pressed, settled, and left alone. There is no trick to any of this. When the site does the work, the winemaking becomes simple: pick it well, treat it gently, stay out of the way. Naturally.
Most Barossa Shiraz goes to oak. This one goes into a concrete egg, deep in our underground cellar, for fifteen months.Concrete adds nothing. No vanilla, no toast, no makeup. The egg's shape keeps the wine gently moving on its lees, and the concrete breathes just enough to let it develop texture and depth. What goes in is Gnadenfrei North. What comes out is Gnadenfrei North, with fifteen months of patience behind it. If we believed this wine needed dressing up, we'd have used oak. We don't, so we didn't.
Gnadenfrei North is farmed organically and biodynamically, and certified for it. No synthetic pesticides. No synthetic herbicides. No shortcuts. The vineyard is surrounded by native vegetation that keeps the site's ecology alive and working: insects, soil life, birds, the lot. Healthy ground grows honest fruit. It's not a philosophy we bolted on. It's the only way farming this place has ever made sense. You can't claim a wine tastes of somewhere and then spray that somewhere into silence.
Semi-translucent crimson. Cardamom, clove, dried violets over dark plum and blueberry, with a mineral edge that speaks of the rugged slope it grew on. The palate is precise, almost electric. Tension and beauty, a long finish of exotic spice and velvet tannin. That's what this place makes.
Tscharke Gnadenfrei North Shiraz 2022
Wine Details
Vintage: 2022
Vineyard: Gnadenfrei North
Variety: 100% Shiraz
Alcohol: 14.5% Abv
pH: 3.42
Titratable Acidity: 6.4 g/L
Taste Profile
Semi-translucent crimson colour.
The bouquet is dominated by spice. Notes of cardamom, clove, dried herbs and dried violets are supported by a background of dark fruit, plum and blueberry. Mineral notes speak of the rugged slope on which the grapes grow.
The palate shows extreme precision. A tight, linear structure makes the wine almost electric. A vivid forest fruit impression interlaces with floral and herbaceous flavours.
Tension and beauty define this shiraz, with a long finish of exotic spices and velvety tannins.
Best decanted in its youth, this wine will develop gracefully over the next decade and beyond.
Vintage Notes
Deep soaking winter rains that trickled into spring provided a spectacular start to the growing season. The moist soils minimised the threat of frosts, followed with a mild spring at bud break made for a promising start to an incredible vintage. Despite its dryness, the growing season was relatively mild. Warm days, cool nights and little to no disease pressure gave rise to fruit rich in flavour and naturally high acid, all with relatively modest sugar levels. The wines produced from 2021 will drink well young and many, if allowed, will cellar well to remind us of the great vintage. One of the best vintages in the recent decade.
Winemaking
The fruit was hand-picked on the 1st of April, at sunrise. 75% of it was tipped into concrete fermenters as whole bunches, while the remaining fruit was crushed on top to cover.
After five days of cold fermentation and gentle cap management, the ferments were foot stomped. Five days later the wine was pressed to tank to undergo MLF. By the end of April the dry wine was racked into two concrete eggs to mature for a further 15 months before being bottled and aged prior to its release.
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