Tasting Notes

Appearance: deep crimson

Nose: a classic cool-climate shiraz with earthy aromas of clove and black pepper spices. There are supple fruits on the nose such as dark plum and blueberry.

Palate: lush with savoury, fine-grain tannins to provide interest and lovely peppery, lingering flavours, synonymous with a good shiraz.

• Halliday wine Companion 2020 – 93 points (silver)
• The Real Review – 90/100 SILVER
• ICCWS – Bronze
• Geelong Wine show – Silver

Food Pairing

• Roast lamb
• BBQ meats
• Indian and Asian dishes

Our shiraz is a versatile match for a variety of foods. It pairs well for a BBQ lunch with friends or rack of roast lamb for dinner. The pepper characteristics compliment Asian food like butter chicken or a teriyaki-glazed salmon.

Moorabool Valley Shiraz

The cool climate gives our shiraz full ripeness and beautiful finesse. The climate allows us to create a more nuanced, savory, spicy wine with a refined structure.

Our shiraz vines are now over 20 years old and are from the PT23 clone, originally sourced from the James Busby collection imported to Australia in 1832. This clone is known for its blackberry and peppery flavours, deep colour and tannin. These characteristics, along with the age of our vines create a world-class shiraz that is rich and luscious, yet medium-bodied.

The Austin’s Vineyard

Austin’s has been located in the heart of the Moorabool Valley since 1990, a cool climate wine region steeped in rich history. Nestled between Geelong & Ballarat, the Moorabool Valley’s small, family run vineyards provide rich and intense low yield fruit, an ideal terroir for producing award-winning wines.

The Austin’s Estate is across 1,500 acres, with 150 under vine. The land boasts rich volcanic, limestone soils and a terrain that sits in a rain shadow.

Sitting on the ocean floor some 20,000 years ago, this land has been reclaimed by millennia of volcanic activity. Geelong’s Moorabool Valley sub-region has a tough limestone and basalt base. This gives the sub-region its unique terroir and provides ideal free-draining soil for our grapevines.

Moorabool Valley’s cool climate is continental by nature but still moderated by its proximity to the ocean. This provides perfect conditions to grow world-class wines. All vines are planted north–south and trained vertically. The canopies are managed to provide enough light and air into the fruit zone to maximise vine quality and health.

Careful irrigation during the growing season ensures healthy vine growth and even ripening which is the key to quality fruit.

Our Shiraz vines are sourced from the PT23 clone which was originally sourced from the James Busby collection imported to Australia in 1832. It’s known for its tendency to have blackberry and peppery flavours along with deep colour and tannin. The vineyard is now over 20 years old which will provide fruit with a greater depth of flavour.

Read more about the Moorabool Valley region here.

Winemaking notes

A warm summer and autumn, with a few above-average rainfall events, ensured happy, healthy vines. Ripening was steady, ensuring a nice range of flavours at moderate alcohols and good acidities. A blend of equal quantities of an early batch of shiraz, picked on 20 March 2017 at 23.2 brix and a batch picked on 7 April 2017 at 25.2 brix, provided a range of flavours and complexity.

The fruit was fermented in open stainless-steel fermenter and oak barrels, spending up to two weeks on skins before it was pressed off. Forty percent of the barrels were new oak, adding more structure and rounding out the palate while increasing the complexity of the bouquet. The finest barrels were blended and then returned to barrels for another five months. All barrels were then combined for the final blend, before being cross flow filtered and bottled in October 2018.

The 2017 growing season

The growing season of 2016/17 was subject to wild weather fluctuations, yet the Moorabool Valley held steadfast throughout. A warm summer and autumn, with a few above-average rainfall events, ensured happy, healthy vines with minimal disease pressure due to the windy, well-drained nature of the Moorabool Valley. Ripening was steady, helped along by 50mm of rain in March and mild temperatures, ensuring a nice range of flavours at moderate alcohols and good acidities. A blend of equal quantities of an early batch of shiraz, picked on 20 March 2017 at 23.2 brix and a batch picked on 7 April 2017 at 25.2 brix, provided a range of flavours and complexity.

Shipping

We know you’d love to be drinking your wine as soon as possible. That’s why we will dispatch your order within 24 hours of your placing it.*

We are located in the Moorabool Valley, Victoria. We use either a courier, Fastway or Australia Post depending on the location. Orders are picked up our orders every afternoon at 3pm. Once fulfilled, you will receive an email confirming it’s dispatch with a tracking ID so you can follow it the entire journey.

How much does it cost?

Free shipping AUS wide with any purchase over $99.

For any purchase under $99:

• VIC – $10
• Every other state $20

When will it arrive?

• Geelong – 1-2 Business Days
• Melbourne – 1-2 Business Days
• Rest of Victoria – 1-2 Business Days
• NSW/ACT – 2-3 Business Days
• SA – 2-3 Business Days
• TAS – 4-5 Business Days
• QLD – 5-7 Business Days
• WA – 7 Business Days
• NT – 7 Business Days

If you order hasn’t arrived within this time frame, please contact us so we can chase it up for you.

* In warmer months we will not dispatch orders on Friday to avoid heat issues with wine during transport. During sale times please allow 48 hours for dispatch. 24 hours refers to next business day.

Returns

We are very confident in the quality of our wines that if for any reason you feel the wine is not up to standard, follow these steps to enable a refund:

1. Notify us within 30 days of your delivery that you will like a refund. Any feedback during this time would be appreciated.
2. We’ll send you a return shipping label and you can book in a pick up address and time that suits you.
3. Upon inspection of the goods returned, if they are in the same condition as to how they were sent*, we will issue a refund to you.

*’Same condition to how they were sent’ simply means – no damaged labels, wine must have been stored in appropriate temperature conditions (not in a freezer or in direct sunlight or in damp conditions). The shipment is to be sent back in the original box and include the empty bottle of wine you have consumed to ensure the package is shipped safely.

If for some reason the wine was delivered to you damaged, simply take a photo of the stock and we will send a replacement.