HEARTLAND ONE BY BEN GLAETZER
Heartland is the place between the vines that offers the best view of the gum trees. This is their Number One wine and the apex of their achievement. They are overjoyed that they have been able to make a small number of bottles in 2013.
Spring frosts and the nature of the old vines combined to offer only the smallest of harvests for Heartland One in 2013. Although quantities a very low, the gentle ripening season has yielded a wine of enormous potential.
The best grapes from the finest vineyards in Langhorne Creek are recruited to create Heartland One. The fruit was harvested at night and then crushed to small open top fermenters. After 24 hours of skin contact, fermentation was commenced with their Rhône isolate yeast. Following 8 days of cool fermentation on skins and hand-plunging three times daily, the wine was transferred to new oak hogsheads (both French and American) for malolactic transformation, racking and a further 14 months of maturation.
The sheer intensity of this wine in its youth tends to obscure the multilayered collection of herbs and spices that track the unstoppable expansion of fruit on the palate. This densely purple wine of powerful dark fruit is complemented by velvety texture and a complex and lingering finish.
