Mount Pleasant Old Paddock & Old Hill Hunter Valley Shiraz 2019

Mount Pleasant Old Paddock & Old Hill Hunter Valley Shiraz 

Region: Hunter Valley New South Wales, Australia

Vintage: 2019

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Shiraz

ABV: 14%

This wine has aromas of intense red and black fruits, supported by a beautiful spice. On the palate, dense fruit flavours of blackberries, plum, and mulberry abound, supported by a firm tannic structure and a long finish.

This wine is a blend of two adjacent vineyards: the Old Paddock and the Old Hill both located in the town of Pokolbin in Hunter Valley. Rising toward the Brokenback Range, these hillside vineyards of rich, volcanic soil and granite sit at 60-100 metres above sea level. The Old Paddock vineyard sits next to the Old Hill vineyard, and runs down the slope from West to East. Thanks to its orientation, the vineyard enjoys the cool morning sun, and is protected from the harsh westerly winds that can come through in summer. This protection is vital to ensure even ripening conditions and retention of natural acidity and tannin.

The separate parcels of Old Hill and Old Paddock were hand-picked and destemmed to open top fermenters. A short cold soak of 72 hours followed. The must was then inoculated with yeast and fermentation was carried out with pump overs occurring three times a day. Once the wine reached full dryness, the skins were pressed off and the wine was moved to tank where it underwent malolactic fermentation. After this, the wine was racked to a combination of small and large format oak, with around 25% new French oak being used. The wine was kept in oak for 12 months before being blended and bottled.

Mount Pleasant was founded in 1921 by legendary winemaker Maurice O’Shea, widely recognised as an industry pioneer and the father of modern Australian winemaking. According to James Halliday, who named Mount Pleasant 3rd in the inaugural 100 Top Wineries of Australia in 2023, “there’s an argument to say that Mount Pleasant is Australia’s most important wine estate. It’s certainly ground zero of fine Australian table wine, thanks to the legendary exploits of its founding winemaker, Maurice O’Shea, from the 1920s onwards. But successive winemakers, from Phil Ryan to Jim Chatto to Adrian Sparks, have inched the wines of this estate to higher and higher levels, to the point where now a whole series of its current-release wines are classics in the making

https://www.mountpleasantwines.com.au