2018 Jeanneret The Denis Shiraz

2018 The Denis Shiraz
LIMITED RELEASE

The Story
The Denis is named in honour and in memory of Ben Jeanneret’s father, Denis, a Swiss watchmaker, who founded the winery in 1992 after he’d fallen in love with the Clare Valley, and simply and out of the blue, decided he was going to make wine. As Ben says, “The Denis is intended to be the best, biggest and most opulent wine we can make. Curiously, it’s not a style that Denis would’ve made himself, instead preferring a more elegant wine but, this is my way of honouring my father, and fathers and sons rarely agree on everything.”

The Denis comes from a single block in a single vineyard. The vines face north and grow in fairly poor soil. In a hard year we’ll get next to nothing from them, in some years the wine is merely good but not great. But in other years this block can produce great Shiraz of exceptional intensity and depth with an absolutely singular character. The 50 year old vines are always picked with great care by hand and only once they are oozing flavour. After fermentation and a month on skins the wine is pressed and filled to oak, all of it French, a fair amount of it new and aged for 40 months. At that point a barrel selection is made and only the best barrels will make it into the Denis (the rest makes a very delicious contribution to the Rank & File Shiraz). No fining and no filtration. 230 dozen bottled.

The Wine
The utter blackness of the wine is certainly a clue to its intensity, Quite stern on the nose – lots of tar and spice overlaying the deep blackberry fruit. On the palate, the intensity is very obvious, as is the enormous length to the dark, ripe fruit. It has a quite extraordinary amount of intense bramble fruit, shot through with spice and filigreed with incredibly fine tannins. A case study in restrained power, showing it has excellent potential in a decanter (in the shorter term) or the cellar (in the longer term). Will last for ages in a good cellar.

Growing Conditions
Harvest Date - 16/03/2018
Pre-harvest diurnal range - 14.9 °c
Elevation - 390m
Vine Age - 50 years
Growing seasonal rainfall - 418mm
Time on skins - 31 days
Time on lees - 25 days
Time in oak - 40 months
Fermentation Temp - 28.8 °c

Food Pairing
And what to eat with it if you’re not just marveling at it on its own? Well, probably, beef, venison, kangaroo are at the top of the list, as is a really excellent cheddar.

Varieties: Shiraz
Vintage: 2018
Country: Australia
Region: Clare Valley
Alcohol: 16.5%
Bottle size: 750 mL