FRUIT

A singular wine that is the product of a singular vineyard. Lying just north of Clare, this vineyard has an old patch of Merlot that sometimes produces nearly nothing, but sometimes something truly exceptional; and it did just that in 2006. The fruit was hand harvested in late March in perfect condition in perfect weather.

VINIFICATION

As soon as the fruit was crushed to the fermenter the colours, flavours and aromas stood out as exceptional, as they had done in the vineyard. Fermentation took place after three days of pre-ferment maceration (to extract lots of colour and delicious flavours) and lasted eleven days, and started warm at 30 degrees and then finished (relatively) cool at 20 degrees. After pressing, the wine was aged in tank for 10 months before filling to oak in February 2007, into a combination of (second fill) French and (a bit older) American oak. And there it lay, undisturbed for 32 months, until we picked out the best and most opulent barrels, and blended and bottled them in October 2009.

THE WINE

An explosion of joyful, hedonistic pleasure, the 2006 Hummer could charm its way through any door in the world; a wine full of unmitigated, delicious joy of life. Very deeply coloured and quite opaque in the centre, the Hummer has a gloriously luxurious nose of deliciously rich and perfumed chocolate studded with the most perfectly ripe cherries in all the world, surrounded by a bed of the most ravishingly aromatic roses in all creation. So, not a bad first impression. And the palate’s not too bad either: as wonderful and as comfortable as the best pillow in the world, stuffed with the best chocolate, the best cherries and the best roses. Probably not something to try with a pillow at home, but after a bottle of the Hummer who knows … Overwhelmingly soft, overwhelmingly delicious, but nonetheless with great structure to hold it all in place and give it definition. And it all ends in a friendly tsunami of dark cherry, slippery plum and melting chocolate.

Serve with roast goose, jugged hare or steak au poivre.

A final note.... if you have any American friends, make sure you know them really well before you offer them a Hummer. We are saying no more.

A FEW NUMBERS

Alcohol 14.7%     pH 3.6     TA 6.1