PAXTON 2022 QUANDONG FARM SHIRAZ

Quandong Farm Shiraz is a single vineyard wine that aims to highlight the intensity and brightness of fruit grown using biodynamic techniques. Our farming practices are designed to produce wines of intensity, but also with layers of texture, flavor, and interest for the consumer. We think this wine exhibits these characteristics and provides both concentration and flavor and a certain delicacy, rather than simply raw power.

Vintage Notes

Well, you thought 2021 was good but I bet you hadn’t heard about 2022 yet! With most of the country experiencing extreme La Niña conditions, in McLaren Vale we were hit with the lucky stick and enjoyed plenty of soil-moistening rain through the winter but no extreme events. Budburst was a breath of new life after a long cool Winter and conditions were ideal up to flowering where things went a bit haywire. Crazy Melbourne-type weather blew a lot of the flowers away before they could turn into fruit… but less fruit, more quality, and coming off a bumper 2021 vintage it helped balance things out. We had a lovely cool summer, which helped ripening happen nice and slow, just the way we like it. Vintage was well spread out with fine days through most of March allowing us to choose when to pick and preserve stunning, natural acidity.

Bouquet

This wine is an aromatic feast for the senses. The is a heady scent of musk, boysenberry, and purple fruit straps, accented by fragrant notes of juniper, rosemary blooms, and a hint of sandalwood incense. There are also subtle hints of candy characters from the bunches used during fermentation, adding complexity and depth.

Palate

Rich flavors of boysenberry, plum, and black cherry mingle with hints of savory spice and a subtle earthiness. There's a dancing brightness to this wine, which belies its incredible depth of flavor concentration without being inky or heavy. The powdery tannins are firm yet velvety, like the soft glow of embers in a fire pit, and the finish is long and satisfying, with a subtle hint of juniper and rosemary lingering on the palate.

Vinification

Grapes were hand-picked and selector harvested at other optimum flavor and sugar equilibrium. 40% was used as whole bunches while the remainder was delicately destemmed and fermented using 100% indigenous (wild) yeast. The small batch open ferments were carefully plunged and pumped over for 10-15 days to extract color, flavor, and tannin structure, then pressed to new and mature French oak puncheons, where they were nurtured for 12 months before blending and bottling.

Alcohol: 14.0%

Winemaker: Ashleigh Seymour and Kate Goodman

Peak Drinking: GOOD: Now - BETTER: 2025 - MAX: 2036