Brand's Laira 'Stentiford's' Shiraz 2016

Brand's Laira is an iconic winery, nestled in the heart of the famed 'terra rossa' strip of the Coonawarra region in South Australia. Steeped in heritage with a wealth of old vine vineyards dating back to 1893, Brand’s Laira offers a range of opulent and richly flavoured premium wines from this distinct region. With a winemaking philosophy that focuses on sourcing the best possible fruit, the Brand's Laira wines are classically Coonawarra in nature, combining the powerful influence of the rich red soils of the 'terra rossa' with skilled winemaking to create world renowned wines. Each range exhibits a shared standard of excellence and a distinctly Coonawarra style. Casella Family Brands are now the proud custodians of this iconic Australian winery, and are dedicated to its long-term commitment to producing world class wines.

VINTAGE CONDITIONS

The growing season was long with a good moist start; flowering commenced in November with cool windy conditions leading to lower yield in Cabernet and Merlot. This was followed by a dry Summer with warm days and cool nights – perfect for colour and flavour development. However, heat wave conditions in January caused a little fruit loss. Harvest of white varieties began in early March with a great varietal flavour profile and solid natural acid structure. The ripening period for the red varieties was cool and slow. Harvest of red varieties began in late March with classic varietal fruit flavours, good colour and fine grained tannins. 

Crimson red.  The nose displays lovely blackberry, plum and spice fruits with subtle dusty cedar oak from barrel fermentation and maturation.  The wine has a complex medium weight palate displaying dark berry fruits and spice with fine velvety tannins and well integrated nutty oak flavours. 

Fruit for this wine was hand-picked from our original vineyard or Stentiford’s block planted in 1893 and tended by Captain Stentiford. This block is located on the ‘Laira’ vineyard in central Coonawarra on classic Terra Rossa soils. After picking, the fruit was destemmed and crushed into a small open stainless steel fermenter where the wine was fermented on skins for a period of 8 days with rack and return pumpovers twice a day to ensure full extraction of colour , flavour and tannins. The wine was then pressed while still slightly sweet (around 1 Baume) and pumped to a mix of new and second use fine grain French oak barriques, hogsheads and puncheons to complete primary and malolactic fermentation (MLF). Once fermentation was complete the wine was racked off lees, the barrels cleaned and the wine then pumped back to barrels for maturation. A further 2 gentle rackings (siphoning barrel to barrel via gravity) were conducted through the maturation period to achieve a high level of clarity and aid wine development. After 21 months maturation each individual barrel was assessed for quality and the final blend then assembled for bottling. 

PEAK DRINKING Drinking well now and if stored correctly, will deliver drinking pleasure for 10+ years. 

WINE ANALYSIS Alcohol: 13.5% pH: 3.48 Acidity: 6.2g/L