Mt Difficulty Ghost Town Bendigo Syrah 2020

Mt Difficulty Ghost Town Bendigo Syrah 2020French oak Raspberry Pepper spice Drying tannins "Seamless Syrah with nicely integrated flavours, including forest floor bottle development and appealing cherry berry characters. A core of sweet fruit is nicely balanced by fine, drying tannins" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Feb 2024 A dark garnet, almost inky Syrah. Leather, blackcurrant pastille and a touch of raspberry leaf from the cool season introduce the wine. Spicy, gamey and

• French oak
• Raspberry
• Pepper spice
• Drying tannins

"Seamless Syrah with nicely integrated flavours, including forest floor bottle development and appealing cherry/berry characters. A core of sweet fruit is nicely balanced by fine, drying tannins" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Feb 2024

A dark garnet, almost inky Syrah. Leather, blackcurrant pastille and a touch of raspberry leaf from the cool season introduce the wine. Spicy, gamey and savoury flavours on the palate go toe to toe with dark brooding fruit. Some peppercorn, wood smoke, cassis and violet notes pop up on the finish to give a lift and vibrancy. We expect this wine to evolve with careful cellaring for another 10-15 years. optimal cellaring conditions.

Mt Difficulty Single Vineyard wines are a celebration of time and place. Located in Bendigo on Chinaman’s Terrace, once home to over 2000 Chinese miners during the 1860s and 70s, Ghost Town vineyard comprises of 13ha planted in mature Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Syrah. Planted in 2001, Ghost Town is at a high elevation rising from 340m to 382m. It potentially sees slightly warmer temperatures than Bannockburn during the peak of the ripening period, although harvest can be a week or so later than our Bannockburn vineyards due to this elevation. Ghost Town’s unique personality, together with minimal winemaking intervention, has resulted in a Syrah that displays a fine texture and suppleness.

2020 sets a new benchmark for tricky seasons, but ultimately produced wines of exceptional quality. The growing season was introduced by a wet, cold and windy spring. These conditions continued through our key flowering and fruit set periods in October and December. Disturbed weather patterns continued right through January, and whilst the weather settled in February, it was not its usual scorching self. We experienced cool periods through both veraison and ripening, delaying and then slowing down our harvest. Ultimately these conditions resulted in superb fruit condition with no disease pressure, and small berries bursting with flavour.

The Syrah was the last fruit harvested for the season on the 12th May. There are 4 different clonal combinations in the vineyard and these were all harvested together. There were two different ferments of Syrah, one was fully de-stemmed; the second contained 30% whole clusters. The must underwent 7 days of cold maceration, being hand plunged once daily. The ferments were heated after this and both fermented with indigenous yeasts. The ferments lasted for an average of 10 days during at which time they were hand plunged once daily with the temperature peaking at 30°C. One of the ferments was pressed off at 2 Brix whilst the other stayed on skins for a further 7 days post-dryness and was plunged occasionally with increasing ease. When the wine tasted in harmony it was pressed off to barrel where it resided on full lees for 12 months. It underwent malolactic fermentation in the spring, was racked out of barrel in late autumn and was not filtered orfined prior to bottling.