Place of Changing Winds Heathcote Syrah Second Bottling 2019
$37.99
SPECIAL BUY 6 or more. Special 2nd bottling of this vintage – 30 months maturation. Even more beautifully integrated than the first release. Rhone-like, bright, elegant and supple.
Out of stock
Description
WINNER: Best New Winery of the Year – 2022 Halliday Wine Companion
“Place of Changing Winds – the place and the vineyard – may well be the most exciting ‘new’ development in Australian wine. It will jump straight on to elite lists of Australian wine producers. You could describe this endeavour in one word: uncompromised.” Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
Place of Changing Winds is the vineyard project of Bibendum’s founder and owner Robert Walters. It is a single site in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria where Walters and his team began planting in 2012. The POCW site is very close to Bindi and lies on the same geological belt with a proven track record for quality Pinot and Chardonnay. The vineyard is in a little hamlet called Bullengarook, between Mount Bullengarook and Mount Macedon, about one-hour north-west of Melbourne.
To understand how to establish and manage this kind of vineyard took a lot of research and has been the result of some 25 years of engagement with the best European growers. By the time the project was established, Rob, with his viticulturist and friend Tim Brown had visited Europe together five times, in order to meet with many of the most inspirational growers Rob knows, and finalising the planning of the vineyard.
Place of Changing Winds is a super-high density, organic certified, no-compromise vineyard, focused exclusively on producing the highest quality wines with the maximum expression of their quartz and sandstone riddled soils.
The vineyard lies in an area that was called Warekilla by the original inhabitants, the Wurundjeri people. In their language, Warekilla meant “Place of Changing Winds” – a characteristic of the site that still holds true today.
In addition to the vines they grow themselves, they also produce some Syrah and Marsanne from vines further north of their base, in the warmer and dryer climates of Heathcote, and, from 2021, Mount Alexander in Harcourt North. Both these sites are superb places to grow Rhone varietals, and in both cases they work very closely with the vineyard owner, who works to their organic specifications -they choose the harvest dates and all picking is done by hand.
The soils here are the famous ‘Cambrian soils’—red dirt made up of eroded basalt over limestone, shot through with greenstone and jasper. The wines were grown organically, without any chemical inputs, and with minimal irrigation.
2019 was a warm, dry and fast-ripening vintage. It was a relatively straightforward year where the only critical decision was getting the picking date right. The ferments were full of energy and flew through without incident. The Syrah speaks for itself–it’s bright and juicy with good depth and excellent freshness. This is a wine that is very expressive of where it was grown.
This wine is from a single vineyard on the east-facing slopes of Colbinabbin, in the northern, Mount Camel Range subzone of Heathcote, Victoria. The soils here are red/brown eroded basalt (the famous Cambrian soils), shot through with greenstone. The vines were grown without chemical inputs and with minimal irrigation.
This is a special second bottling of this wine. From the winery: “The longer aging has produced a finer, more integrated, and complex wine. It’s spicier and more savoury and spicier than our first bottling, but also more floral, and seductive, with a lovely mouthfeel. And it has great drive and freshness on the finish. In short, it’s a delicious wine that we’re very proud of!” Robert Walters, Place of Changing Winds
The Syrah was fermented naturally with 100% whole bunches in small fermenters. The grapes were foot-stomped at the very beginning and this led to more structure and savouriness than is typically aimed for. The idea was this would be a blending component but in the end it was decided to bottle this singular Syrah separately. The aging was in a large, neutral oak (1,000lt and 2,000lt Stockinger), and this version–the second bottling of this wine–stayed there for a full 30 months. Made and bottled at Place of Changing Winds. It is 13% alc/vol and bottled with DIAM 10 closure.
95 points, Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront “We’ve already reviewed this wine – here – but this is a special second bottling, which spent extra time in oak, a full 30 months all told. It was matured in (large) 1000 lt and 2000 lt oak so the extra time wasn’t in search of extra oak flavour; if anything, the opposite.
The bottle I tried seemed quite reserved on the nose, even allowed a good amount of time to breathe, but the palate is quite something. The push through the finish here is elite. I mentioned the descriptor ‘sultana’ in my original review but I don’t see any of that now; it seems darker and more savoury, with dry licorice notes running through red/black cherry, along with smoked tobacco, along with sweet and woodsy spice aplenty. But really this wine is all about the finish, which is dynamite. It’s peacock’s tail territory. Dry, structural, plenty going on, a touch of the regal. I’m up a point, score-wise, and I’m tempted to be up by more. It’s a fabulous wine.”
RRP $46 **Our Special Price when you buy 6 or more of this wine $37.99**
Additional information
Producer | Place of Changing Winds |
---|---|
Region or Country | Australia, Heathcote, Victoria |
Variety | syrah |
Vintage | 2019 |
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