• French oak
• Black Doris plum
• Toasted nut
• Fine tannins

"Gorgeously ripe and perfumed with Black Doris plum, spiced cherry, clove and toasted nut aromas, it’s wonderfully rounded and plump in the mouth offering excellent fruit purity and elegant complexity. Splendidly framed by fine tannins, finishing seductively elegant and graceful. At its best: now to 2032" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2022

"Varietal and savoury with a core of fruit and decent level of intensity showcasing the core of fruit then fine peppery qualities. Aromas of black cirrant and spiced plum, there’s a savoury spiced meats and leather quality then  wood spices with a light smok quality. Flavours are reflected on the palate with firm youthful tenmsion from tannins and acdity providing the foundation for ageing. Still taut and new, but packed with flavours of dark fruits, some meats and barrel spice complexities. Well made ith readiness from drinking from 2023 through 2029+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Feb 2022

Deep and vibrant ruby color. Plenty to get excited about on the nose! Classic cool climate Syrah notes of black pepperand clove spice with dark liquorice and mineral/Tar scents. Nice oak adds some class. Palate is youthful, vibrant. Full bodied red wine with plenty of rich flavor. The tannins areripe and smooth but most certainly present, in a very positive fashion, on the finish,which is long and flavour filled. Really nice drinking already. Really opens up in the glass over an hour or so. Decantingrecommended. Will be a very long lived wine. At its best from 2025 onwards.

Winter came late with August and September cold and wet. Jack Frost paid a visit with acatastrophic event occurring late spring resulting in heavy losses across the region. Wewere not spared, Eclipse vineyard was struck across the blocks closest to the terraceedge, losses estimated around 30%. High rainfall returned in November negativelyimpacting on the flowering stage, reducing crop levels significantly and makingmachinery work extremely difficult. To put it mildly; a highly challenging spring.
Summer was hot and relatively dry. Harvest was earlier than usual with perfect weatherfor picking. In the end excellent quality fruit was harvested albeit in small quantities.

Hand harvested at Blue Rock Vineyard on the 21st of April from Highfold B block, thesteepest slope on this elevated North facing vineyard. Planted in 1997. All bunches were de-stemmed directly into a three ton open topped fermenter. Everyeffort was made to preserve as much “whole berry” as possible. This, along with the useof cooling helps to ensure a slow onset of full fermentation allowing the native non–saccharomyces yeasts time to perform an initial ferment before the stronger, moredominant native saccharomyces yeast strains take over and complete full alcoholicfermentation. We grow a few rows of Viognier at Blue Rock which is harvested at thesame time as the Syrah. Once the juice is pressed off the Viognier skins are added to theSyrah ferment. Total maceration time for this vintage was between 20 – 30 days beforegentle pressing. All press fractions are included in the final blend. Once the wine had settled in tank for three or four days it was transferred to French oakpuncheons for maturation. Malolactic fermentation completed naturally during the winterof 2020. In total the wine spent 12 months in barrel. New oak in the finished wine isaround 20%. The only additions were sulphur dioxide post malo followed by a small topup prior to bottling. Bottled Unfined and Unfiltered.

Food Pairing: Drink with red wine braised beef cheeks and pomme puree. Be great with a firm cheese as well.