Description

This is handmade wine at its finest. Lionel and Peder run their 13 acre Heathcote II vineyard by themselves. Controlling all the factors they can to allow the dry grown, low yielding vines to mature the grapes and provide the best raw materials they can for making wine. The vineyard made up of the red Cambrian soils that make Heathcote so special and is planted to predominantly Shiraz with some Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Tempranillo and Grenache. The winemaking involves a lighter touch a despite the grapes getting quite ripe, the wines are elegant, fine and subtle.

A blend of 41% Cabernet Franc, 32% Merlot and 27% Cabernet Sauvignon. Myola is intensely coloured and offers a vibrant and fresh nose of cassis, mint, violets, oak and much more. The palate is elegant and refreshing with clean acid and firm tannins. One for the cellar to be sure, give it another 10 years. Serve it with something traditional like roast lamb and be in heaven.

Heathcote

The glamour region of Victoria for lovers of big reds. And the core production is Shiraz and Cabernet with ‘guts’. But it is a region that offers a lot of diversity when you scratch the surface. The cooler southern parts border Macedon and make lovely aromatic wines. There is a lot of experimentation and adoption of more drought resistant Italian varieties to great effect too.

Cabernet Franc

Is actually one of the parents of Cabernet Sauvignon… along with Sauvignon Blanc (oh! The name makes sense now!).  It is most famous for being the third most important grape in quality Bordeaux but also excels in the Loire Valley (where it lived before it went to Bordeaux), especially Chinon and Saumur. The wines are bright red in colour, highlight aromatic with raspberries, rose petals, violets along with tobacco, cassis and some herbal elements. The best examples can live as long as any great wine.

Merlot

It gets a tough time most of the places it is grown. But in Pomerol and Saint-Emilion Merlot not only dominates but makes some of the best wines in the world. Perfume, silky and plush. Cabernets Franc and Sauvignon season the wines with structure and acid but in some places, like Petrus they are almost not needed.

Cabernet Sauvignon

The main grape of Bordeaux’s left bank. Cabernet is late ripening and full of acid and tannin. The great wines are structured but finessed with beautiful cassis, violets and it also transmits the flavours of the soil it is grown in really well. Cabernet isn’t a drink now variety, it really needs 10 or more years to show its best. But when you get there, WOW! Often blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc or in Australia Shiraz to fill out its mid-palate referred to as the ‘Cabernet doughnut’.

2010

The year the drought broke in Heathcote. Good rains through winter and spring made for happy vineyards. Hail and late rains tried to spoil the party. But it was a long growing season that produced elegant and balanced wines of great purity.