Love the colour; showing gold with just the slightest pinky/orange tinge coming as a result of the skin contact during production. Like a decadent pear tart has been pulled from the oven! There’s a candied pear and kinda spiced brioche vibe here with some apricot wafting on by too. All very aromatic and heady. Flavours are embedded deep within the texture, slipping and sliding, sumptuous and luscious, but not sweet, but also not dry … hmmmm.

Winter came late with August and September cold and wet. Jack Frost paid a visit with a catastrophic event occurring late spring resulting in heavy losses across the region. We were not spared, Eclipse vineyard was struck across the blocks closest to the terrace edge, losses estimated around 30%. High rainfall returned in November negatively impacting on the flowering stage, reducing crop levels significantly and making vineyard work extremely difficult. To put it mildly; a highly challenging spring. Summer was hot and relatively dry. Harvest was early again with perfect weather for picking. In the end excellent quality fruit harvested albeit in small quantities.

Hand harvested at our Blue Rock vineyard. Majority whole bunch pressed to tank for cold settling, Fruit from the oldest block de–stemmed and crushed to the press for a days’ soak on skins, idea being to extract maximum skin flavours from the pristine ripe fruit which came off the block this vintage. This portion was sent to barrel for fermentation and maturation, other portion was fermented long and cool in a temperature controlled stainless steel tank. Following maturation on lees both portions were combined in tank. Stabilised using bentonite and crossflow filtration. No animal products used.