St Hallett Gamekeeper's Shiraz Grenache Touriga

Juicy plum and cherry flavors combine with a dark chocolate and vanilla framework to create a full bodied but soft, cascading Barossa experience. This wine is typical of traditional Barossa red blends, focusing as it does on the Barossa's two core red grape varieties. However, there is an extra twist too, as it also includes a tiny proportion of Touriga Nacional in the mix, giving it a floral and spice finish.

Winemaking Notes

As a result of extensive trials, we now utilise different yeast strains that are suited to each parcel of fruit, our aim is to highlight the fresh berry, floral, spicy, earthy aromas contributed by the Grenache and the Touriga, and use the richness and pepper spice of the Shiraz to build up the palate weight and structure. The wine has also been allowed to remain in contact with the "lees" post fermentation. This lees contact gives the wine an appealing textural character and savory earthiness that we find very attractive and most importantly, a food friendly attitude.

Gamekeepers is blended and bottled in the same year as vintage. The wine is primarily a fruit driven style, consequently it has not been aged in oak barrels.

Wine Production Stats

Alcohol: 13.5%
pH: 3.46
Residual Sugar: 1.25 g/L

A short burst of heat in late-December was followed by a long period of mostly below-average temperatures through to early March. Reds ripened early, with the first Shiraz picked on 6th February 2008 and the first Cabernet Sauvignon on 25th February 2008. Many vineyards reached flavor maturity at the same time, although the unusually cool days and nights during February ensured fruit stayed in good condition until picking. The mostly mild days and cool nights before the heat wave allowed all vineyards of Shiraz to be picked at optimal flavor ripeness, with generous flavors and supple tannins.

Vineyard Selection

Individual Barossa vineyards are specifically chosen each vintage and blended to craft this full flavored style representing another facet of St Halletts ongoing commitment to the Barossa region and its pedigree. The Shiraz fruit for this wine has been sourced from a patchwork of vineyards throughout the central and western sections of the Barossa Valley, producing intensely flavored, low yielding crops. The Cabernet Sauvignon hails from the cooler, southern sections of the Barossa. During the ripening period, our winemakers and viticulturalist have constantly monitored both the sugar/acid ripeness and flavor development, co-ordinating the harvest when all parcels are at their optimum.

88 points “Savvy Shopper”

Wine Spectator

"Medium-weight, refined and nicely focused to show cherry, raspberry and bacon flavors, lingering on the finish. Shiraz Grenache and Touriga. Drink now through 2013."
– Harvey Steiman (2008 vintage)