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A living legend and bespoke savant of the Australian wine industry, Geoff Merrill began his career in 1973 at Seppelt & Son, before completing tours of duty at Thomas Hardy and Chateau Reynella. Geoff acquired the historic Reynella wineworks in 1985 and has continued to craft many of McLaren Vale's most memorable vintages ever since. Mr Merrill has claimed countless industry accolades and many of our nation's most prestigious awards, including the hotly contested VISY Great Shiraz Challenge and the illustrious Jimmy Watson Trophy. Merrill offers a range of artisanal, limited release wines, of timely age, extravagant oak and sound value... The advanced age & luxury oak of mclaren vale's quiet achiever»
Somewhere near the Seaview end of McLaren Vale's Chapel Hill Road, a perfunctory passerine perched her pincers astride a pair of power poles and saw herself alit. Down she went amongst the dry grown branches of an old Grenache vineyard, setting the valuable veterans ablaze. The scorched site eventually came to the attention of a winemaking trio, the Messrs Leske, Tynan & Cooke, Masters of Wine and a venerable vintner, all driven by a consuming passion to make greater Grenache. Thistledown vintage very small amounts of the most extraordinary Grenache. Beautifully detailed and conspicuously elegant, their floral bouquets and graceful finish emulate the aromatic lift and peacock's tail of a prettily perfumed Pinot Noir. Magnificent to savour as a captivating aperitif, a bliss alongside fine cuisine, the Grenache of.. Polly & the pyre to paradise»
Crafted from small parcels of single vineyard, Gippsland fruit, treated to the traditional old world regimens of whole bunch and wild yeast ferments. These are a range of new world Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to match the classic Cru La Bourgogne, the cool ripening climes provide the perfect chill to encourage velvet tannins. Home Block Chardonnay, a big burgundian style with weighty palate and outstanding length, driven by powerful orchard fruit complexity, supported by textural and seductive, creamy oak richness. Exclusively Myrtle Point grown Pinot Noir, its bright sassafras, cherry fruit complexity is supported by charming pastoral elegance, a touch of barnyard, French oak sophistication and the soundest structure... All that's good from gippsland »

Fox Creek Three Blocks Cabernet Sauvignon CONFIRM VINTAGE

Cabernet Sauvignon McLaren Vale South Australia
An accord of three very different parcels of superior McLaren Vale vineyard, vinified on skins for a week and a half in traditional open vats, followed by transfer to a selection of seasoned and new French oak barrels for completion of malolactic and eighteen months maturation. The individual Blocks of Cabernet were cannily shifted between different cooperages of oak to impart layers of flavour and enhance structure, the final assemblage is a judicious draught of vineyard parcels to achieve layers of flavour and opulent tannin profile.
Available in cartons of six
Case of 6
$227.50
Deep cherry red. Fresh leafy lifted cinnamon and cigarbox, overlaying red berry fruits, dark chocolate, roast chestnuts and black cardamon. Fleshy blackcurrant, black cherry and mulberry flavours lead into a blueberry muffin and milk chocolate mid palate. The savoury and linear grape tannins integrate with elegant oak tannins to give the wine fantastic length, finesse and balance.
Fox Creek
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Fox Creek
It all began when a group of medicos decided to realize a lifelong passion - creating a wine from bare earth and sunshine

In the past years since Fox Creek was established, many of the Fox Creek wines have been recognized by being awarded both Trophies and Gold Medals from National and Regional Wine Shows. The McLaren Vale Region has a Mediterranean style climate with a strong maritime influence and is frost-free as we are 7km from the sea. Annual Rainfall is 600-700mm falling mainly in Winter. It is an ideal location for growing grapes, with little disease pressure.

Fox Creek

Fox Creek has three company vineyards or approximately 60 hectares of vines. The vineyards are within a range of 5 kilometres, near the village of Willunga. "On our vineyards we grow most common grape varieties. The red varieties are our specialty, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The white varieties grown are Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Verdelho and Semillon.

"Fox Creek has always protected and enhanced the areas surrounding the vineyards with plantings of indigenous native trees. These provide habitat, food and shelter for native birds. Our focus is to be environmentally friendly and only use sustainable practices if possible. We strive to minimise the use of any chemical or other artificial agents."

There are many different soil types at the estate vineyards. About one half are black cracking clays full of organic matter which can develop deep cracks in summer. The rest are red sandy loams with rocks right through their profile. These soils are well drained and aerated.

Fox Creek

Fox Creek manage the vineyard floor with a mix of cover cropping and permanent swards. Mulching the under-vine area is also carried out to improve the structure, fertility and microbiological diversity in soil. Cultivation is kept to a bare minimum to conserve soil structure. The vineyard layout and trellis systems have been designed to best suit the specific needs of individual varieties.

Most of the Shiraz is grown on a trellis system called Scott-Henry, and the vines are trained to two cordons. The shoots from the top cordon are lifted by a set of foliage wires while the bottom cordon shoots are down-turned. This system helps control the natural vigour of Shiraz while allowing maximum sunlight penetration and ventilation of the canopy. Most white varieties are grown on a Vertically Shoot Positioned trellis. This gives excellent fruit exposure and ventilation to reduce disease pressure, but enough shading to prevent sunburn damage to the bunches.

With the use of weather stations and continuous monitoring of soil moisture, stress can be minimalized in critical periods such as the time of flowering, controlled stress is utilized to dictate shoot size after fruitset. The outcome of this careful management is to make the most efficient use of limited underground water supplies. All the estate vineyards have drip irrigation, with the exception of one premiere dry-grown Shiraz vineyard.

"All of our vineyards are hand pruned to control vigour. Hand pruning also controls cropping levels which are kept quite low, enabling us to produce small berries full of concentrated flavour and colour. Vintage time is always hectic!" The winemakers sample the grapes regularly to determine the optimum picking time as judged by flavour development and baum (sugar levels).

Fox Creek