Wirra Wirra Vineyards
2006 Woodhedge Shiraz
Shiraz
Australia: McLaren Vale (South)
Mission Briefing
The Mate's Rate
Very Highly Recommended, today’s delicious 2006 Wirra Wirra Woodhenge McLaren Vale Shiraz is a truly exceptional and ultra-delicious wine that our entire tasting panel went absolutely crazy for.
This wonderful wine is loaded with dense, delicious fruit flavors, deep aromatics and an ultra-long finish. Ready and delicious, right on opening, give this wine a few minutes to breathe and it comes to life, revealing additional flavors and a softer overall feel.
Enjoy with a rare prime rib or a delicious peppered steak. Just don’t miss out on this really fantastic wine.
Tasting Profile
| Look: | Dense and dark, with inky garnet hues. Darker through the core, this wine shows lovely ruby highlights when held up to the light as the wine spins in the glass. Along the edges, the color remains dense and when swirled, skinny, widely spaced tears retain the color of the wine as they move very slowly down the glass. |
|---|---|
| Smell: | Layered, lush and bold, with dark mixed berries, plum, smoked dried meats, dried fennel, and burnt caramel. As the wine opens up, it reveals dark cocoa, dark roasted coffee bean, toasted oak, sweet dark pipe tobacco and dark leather. |
| Taste: | Big and bold, with delicious layers of dark flavors, lead by mixed blackberry and blueberry jam, dark plum, black cherry, smoked meats, tobacco and subtle, dark-toasted oak. |
| Finish: | Ultra long and very delicious. Big and bold, with classic, ripe Shiraz flavors that spread all around the palate before very gradually tailing off. |
| Pairing: |
What the Winery Says
Awards & Accolades:
DOUBLE GOLD MEDAL – San Francisco International Wine Comp
93 POINTS – WINORAMA.com.au Gary Walsh, JAN 08 – “Rich and full with dark plums and berries, aniseed, chocolate and toasty vanilla coffee oak. Slightly floral and extremely attractive. On the palate full bodied and voluptuous with plum cake, red berries, chocolate, spice and toasty coffee oak. It has smooth grainy ‘Greek Coffee’ tannins and excellent mouthfeel – deep and satisfying. Finishes long and spicy with a puff of powdery tannin to close. Highly seductive and tasty. Love it.”
92 POINTS – ADELAIDE ADVERTISER – “Fleshy plums and chocolatey elements give this very smart, medium-weighted shiraz a sense of sweet fruitiness with a serious, upright backbone, a fresh fruit pucker in the middle of the mouth, a light coast of tannins and a decent length of flavour all built in. Strongly Vales in character and perhaps better in a year or so.”
“The latest vintage from the RGT collection honours the late Greg Trott, who has just been recognised in a new book about his life and vision for Wirra Wirra. A cracking good red with loads of upfront grunt, intense black berry and plum fruit on the nose and palate, a core of spice, integrated chocolate characters and silky smooth tannins. Drink it with rare sirloin steak.” – ILLAWARRA MERCURY Grape Expectations, Kerry Skinner, FEB 08
“Ripe nose with white pepper overtones, soft on entry then starts to build, flavours unfolding on one level, well supported underneath with acid/tannin. Good depth and length with a great aftertaste and a long, long finish.” – THE KEY REVIEW OF WINES Issue 11, Tony Keys, APRIL 08
About This Wine:
A legacy worth drinking… As a tribute to Greg Trott’s unique vision of that which has always made Wirra Wirra special, we have named our McLaren Vale Shiraz after the massive post-and-rail fence only Trott could have dreamed of and that now greets visitors to the winery.
Woodhenge is essentially in the mould of the fences early settlers would erect, but on a cyclopean scale, with posts more than two metres in diameter, some weighing over three tonnes. Less fence, more elemental sculpture, Woodhenge is a monument to “big” ideas.
Technical Analysis:
Grape Varieties: 100% Shiraz
Region: All fruit was sourced from various sub-regions
throughout McLaren Vale
Oak Maturation: Each vineyard batch was matured in oak for 16months prior to blending. Of the final blend, 65% of wine was matured in French oak and 35% in American oak, of
which 40% was new
Alcohol: 14.5%
TA: 6.2g/L
pH: 3.45
About the Winery
“Wirra Wirra” is an aboriginal name meaning “amongst the gum trees”.
Wirra Wirra Vineyards was originally established in 1894 by known South Australian eccentric and cricketer Robert Strangways Wigley. The winery prospered in its early days, producing many wines including a much acclaimed Shiraz, which was exported to England and the Empire until his death in 1925. The winery ran into disrepair and was eventually abandoned. In 1969 under the watchful eye of the late Greg Trott and his first-cousin Roger, the winery was rebuilt from the remnants of two walls and some slate fermenting tanks. As with all subsequent Trott endeavours, it was the sheer magnitude and unlikeliness of the project that made it so attractive.
Wirra Wirra has always seemed to gather those with an adventurous and slightly eccentric view of life. The late Greg Trott’s personality and philosophy has acted as a magnet to like minds, those who can see no point in being miserable for long and are dedicated to achieving excellence through hard work accompanied by copious fun. People who enjoy good food and lively conversation, who bring individual talents to work and play and who are always prepared to have a go. Dedication to the task and a healthy disrespect for pompous officialdom or unredeemed seriousness are essential traits.
The team that work at the cellars and in the vineyards, the regulars that help at vintage and those that come from overseas, the agents and retailers, and the helpers who organise, build and decorate all identify with this culture and feel a tribal belonging