FOX CREEK 2023 RED BARON SHIRAZ

The wine

 Expect a lively, bright, flavoursome, generous fruit forward red wine. It is deep dark red with vibrant red crimson hues. Fresh, fruity and aromatic. The primary fruit aromas of dark berries, red licorice and cherries overlay vanilla cola, roasted coffee beans and spice from its oak maturation. This is fresh, lively and fruit generous in style. The dark berry, red licorice and cherry flavours follow onto the palate. Apparent fine-grained tannins on the finish balance the generous fruit sweetness and weight in the mid palate making for a thoroughly slurpable, uncomplicated and delicious experience.

The vintage

2023 was a challenging vintage with cool and wet conditions that delayed harvest by more than a month in some blocks. Windy, cold and wet conditions at flowering reduced the yields across the McLaren Vale region resulting in the lowest tonnage crushed since 1993. The cool conditions in combination with the reduced yields resulted in Shiraz fruit that is perfect for the Red Baron style having intense bright fresh primary fruit flavours.

Ageing potential

Designed to drink as a young wine, where the pure exuberance of the McLaren vale Shiraz primary fruit flavour is celebrated, there is structure and tannin to enable short term cellaring of 3-5 years

The winemaking

The majority of the fruit for the 2023 Red Baron was sourced from our own Fox Creek estate vineyards. We need fruit with vibrancy, freshness, intense McLaren Vale Shiraz expression and great colour to make this style. As the Red Baron is fruit forward with tannin and oak playing minor roles to the generous fruit flavours, the winemaking reflected this aim, with shorter time on skins, cooler fermentation temperatures and gentle twice daily pump overs to extract colour but to not overly extract tannin from the skins and seeds. Oak maturation ranged from 4 -12 months all in previously used oak predominately French.