The Grape Varieties in Wren Estate – Heathcote Shiraz
Shiraz and Heathcote Shiraz Background
Shiraz/Syrah is grown in 27 countries with the planting area of over 184,000 ha in the world. It firstly appeared in a vineyard in the Northern Rhône in France, and nowhere else had planted this grape variety until it was taken to Australia in 1832.
Heathcote has established a deserved reputation as being a regional producer of first-class Shiraz wines. The special soil comes from the decomposition of igneous intrusion rock in Cambrian-era, 500 million years ago. The soil type in Heathcote wineries is well-drained and good in water retention, which provides Shiraz vines with an ideally grown environment thereby producing the high-quality winemaking grapes.
Shiraz Characteristics
Shiraz/Syrah is a black variety with thick skin and small grapes. The growth of Shiraz requires a moderate to warm climate to fully ripen, and the variety usually produces wines with medium to high level of acidity and tannins. The flavour of fresh black fruit, e.g black cherry and backberry, herbal and black pepper aromas, are usually appeared in the Shiraz/Syrah grown in a moderate climate area, which is the signature style in Northern Rhône (known as Syrah), while a warm-climate Shiraz/Syrah ofter appears the riper flavours of, such as cooked black fruits and liquorice, with full-bodied and higher alcohol level, which is common in Australian warmer regions (known as Shiraz).
Heathcote Shiraz in Wren Estate
The Heathcote region, where Wren Estate locates, is a warm Mediterranean climate, with an average temperature of 29 degrees in summer and 12 degrees in winter, and it’s a rare place where you can enjoy all four seasons in a year. The climate ensures that the Shiraz in Heathcote wineries can be entirely ripened but would not be over-ripened, and the prized soil type here secures the accumulation of nutrition, terroir flavours and water amount during the growing seasons, allowing the Shiraz wines in Heathcote being flavourful, fruity with fine tannins.
All the ideal conditions attribute Shiraz being the signature variety in Wren Estate. There are 9 single Shiraz wines in Wren, and 2 in blended, and each of the Shiraz wine is showing different terroir of each block in Wren and Michael’s thoughts in the wines. The beautiful and thoughtful Shiraz wines are here, in Wren Estate.
