Purple Hands Barossa Valley Old Vine Grenache

The fruit for this great wine, which punches well above its price point for quality, was sourced from the Zerk Vineyard in Lyndoch, planted in 1961. The vineyard is around 250m above sea level with a northerly aspect and the soil consists of deep red clay with bands of ironstone and shale.

The Grenache was hand-picked on the 4th and 6th March 2018. Around 25% of whole clusters were tipped into open fermenters with the balance crushed on top, header boards were placed on day 2 of ferment. The ferment was the result of indigenous yeast. Temperatures were allowed to reach 30C with pump-overs performed 2 times daily reducing to nil later in ferment. After 11 and 12 days on skins, the fruit was basket pressed and transferred into older puncheons to undergo malo-lactic fermentation. Post malo the wine was then left 3 weeks before SO2 was added in place, the wine was left on lees and topped regularly. The wine was racked in late January 2020 and underwent a coarse filtration prior to bottling.

The wine has a bright crimson colour and aromas of strawberry, spice, earth, bergamot with stem hints from the whole clusters. The palate is mid-weight with a generous and fleshy mouthfeel and typical gravelly tannins add balance to the texture.

The wine was named in Halliday's top 100 wines in 2020.

Purple Hands have only 3 dozen bottles left of this great wine due to its popularity at the time of listing the wine. I will personally make a dent in some of that stock.

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