Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc are well-suited to growing and ripening on the stony Gimblett Road vineyard which yields small crops of concentrated fruit. Antoine fruit is sourced from the older vines and premium blocks of these vineyards with optimum vine growth and very healthy canopies. Our Mere Road vineyard has a light silty topsoil and well drained stony sub soils, well suited to Merlot, which matured well with good concentration and complexity. The summer was warm and dry right through to the harvest. Crop loads were around 4 to 6 tonnes per hectare of concentrated, ripe fruit. Consequently, the heat summation was good but without really high temperatures in January and February that particularly suited the Merlot. Hence the predominance of this variety in the final blend. WINEMAKING
No pre-fermentation maceration. The fermentation temperatures peaked at 30°C, plunged once daily until the end of ferment. A post-ferment maceration of 14 to 30 days was allowed with the length of time guided by texture development. Post malolactic fermentation, the wine was transferred to new (60%) and one year old (40%) very fine grained, medium toast French oak barrels, mostly from the Troncais and Allier forests, for 12 months’ ageing. The different wines were aged separately before the final blend was assembled. The wine was egg white fined.
