Bannockburn De La Roche Shiraz 2018

Bannockburn De La Roche Shiraz 2018 Planted in 2007, this tiny vineyard is littered with volcanic rocks (hence the name) and lies on the plateau above the De La Terre slope—essentially making it a westerly extension of the Serré vineyard. It was originally planted with various clonal cuttings from Best’s and Tahbilk on a mix of rootstock and own roots. Holmes only uses the Best’s clone in this bottling today and the rest of the site has been grafted over to Chardonnay, giving Bannockburn a close-planted Chardonnay block (named Grigsby after Bannockburn’s long-standing vineyard manager). The density is 10,000 vines per hectare in 1.2m rows x 1.0m vine spacing, on a north-south row exposition. The 2018 was wild-fermented with 10% whole bunches and some carbonic maceration influence, followed by maturation in French oak hogsheads for 15 months (only five to 10% new this year).